


Ties That Bind

by graciecon



Series: Ties That Bind [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-01-09 20:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12284313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graciecon/pseuds/graciecon
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes is kidnapped by HYDRA forces in 1945 after his assumed death. He is molded into The Winter Soldier through extreme brainwashing methods and enhancements, a human weapon HYDRA proceeds to use to shape the following century.During the early 90s, a Russian military officer named Vasily Karpov is placed in charge of the Winter Soldier Program, in an effort to give HYDRA more human weapons. When Karpov’s wife dies in December of 1991, Karpov brings his 7-year old daughter Emma to the Siberian base where Barnes is kept.Emma spends 11 years at the base, being slowly trained and prepped as a HYDRA operative. During her time there, she has intermittent interactions with The Winter Soldier that test the boundaries of her loyalty to HYDRA and to her father. When Barnes is reactivated to assassinate SHIELD director Nicholas Fury in 2014, Emma is assigned to keep the “asset” focused on his mission. But her life (and his) get complicated when Captain America gets involved and with pressure straining their ties to HYDRA, Bucky and Emma find comfort in each other.





	1. A New Home

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is here: https://winter-stars-and-stripes.tumblr.com/

December 1991 – Siberia, Russa

Emma Karpov was unhappy with her father.

She glared out the window of the plane that was carrying her across the frozen wasteland, her small arms crossed over her bright pink dress. She hated this dress but Papa had insisted she look presentable when they arrived. She had screamed, kicked, and insisted that she did not want to leave her home nor did she want to wear the absurd dress her father chased her with, frustration etched in his sleep-deprived face. Mama had gone to heaven, Papa said, and there was no one else to care for her in Moscow. She had not cared for his explanation. She didn’t know where heaven was or why Mama couldn’t simply come back but she was more than sure she wouldn’t want Emma to live anywhere else. She had told Papa as much but his patience had waned and in his scariest voice had told her that if she did not come with him, he would simply give her to an orphanage. Emma had stopped screaming and squirming at that, images of the dirty, cold children that wandered the streets serving to dry her tears quickly. She begrudgingly donned the silly outfit, let Papa press her long brown hair into a haphazard ponytail, and then sat, quietly fuming while he gathered their things and set his keys on the foyer table. He had pulled her out the door by the hand and it was only halfway to the airfield that she realized she had forgotten Mishka, her favorite stuffed bear. She thought to ask if they could return to fetch him but thought better of it when she saw the look on Papa’s face. She would never admit it to anyone, least of all her father, but sometimes he frightened her terribly.

The flight was only three hours but Emma couldn’t help but fidget the whole time. Papa slept for most of the flight, so he barely noticed. Emma had only been to the base twice since her father was stationed there but she had desperately disliked it. It was cold and gray and quiet and there were never any other children there to play with. She had asked where she would go to school and Papa had replied that some of the best teachers the Russian government could provide would teach her everything she needed to know. He made no mention of her attending school with others her age and Emma deduced that she would be the only child there and the thought made her feel inconsolably sad.

She could not tell that the plane had begun its descent until she heard the pilot update their arrival time over the loud speakers. She nudged her father’s arm to wake him. He ushered her into her oversized parka and her favorite ushanka before going to speak with the pilot while she pulled on her mittens. At least no one would see the stupid dress right away, she thought miserably. She sat back in her seat to wait for her father’s return. The snow encased mountains were much closer now and she could just barely make out the shadow of the large base nestled in the miles of white. She felt her mouth get very dry and her eyes stung with unexpected tears. She suddenly missed her mother immeasurably.

Her father returned and helped her get her seatbelt on over her coat before doing his own. The small plane shook as the pilot lowered it to the ground, the wind rattling at the windows. Emma closed her eyes and wrapped her arms as far around herself as they would go. She wasn’t overly fond of planes and even less fond of landings. The plane hit the ground harder than she would have liked and she whimpered quietly.

“Hush, little one,” her father said sternly in Russian. Emma bit her lip to keep any more noises from escaping.

The plane rattled to a stop and the pilot emerged from the cockpit and nodded silently to her father, who beckoned her to follow him. She unfastened her seatbelt with no small effort and clambered after him. The plane had landed outside of the base and she was hit with an icy blast of snow and wind in the face as she exited. She bent her head instinctively against the onslaught, gripping her father’s hand tightly to avoid being knocked over by the harsh gusts. He led her into the base quickly and the whistle of the wind died down considerably as she set foot inside the large open area just within the base doors.

She gawked, open-mouthed at the rush of activity that surrounded her. Soldiers and technicians moved quickly around the area, stopping occasionally to speak to each other or hand over files or stacks of paper. Scientists in lab coats huddled in groups of twos and threes as they walked, muttering discreetly to each other. No one looked at her or attempted to speak to her, until her father reappeared at her side, nudging her towards the massive iron double doors near the back of the room. She waddled uncomfortably forward, her coat more a hindrance now than a help. Her father let her lead the way until they reached the long hallway just beyond the doors. He stepped in front of her and hurried down the corridor, gripping their two large suitcases. She struggled to keep up with him, her short legs straining against the parka that covered her whole body. Papa made several abrupt turns through the winding system of hallways he was leading her through until finally reaching another set of double doors, these painted an unwelcome shade of red. He set the suitcases down and unlocked the doors swiftly, pushing them open to allow her to pass.

The room just beyond looked familiar but the lack of color or warmth made her pause. Two large sofas sat facing each other in front of a rather large wood burning iron fireplace. A simple coffee table sat between the sofas, an array of newspapers scattered on top. There was a small kitchen just to the left of the doors and a dining table and four chairs just behind the sofa. The room was intended to look like someone’s home but a lack of paint on the walls or personal touches made it feel more like a bleak hotel suite than a house. A doorway near the dining table led to a small hallway with three doors. Her father pushed open the door to the room closest to the living area to reveal an empty but spacious bedroom. A nondescript twin bed and two wooden dressers were the only pieces of furniture in the room.

“This is your room, myshka,” her father said, setting one of the suitcases on the bed. He left the room briefly, leaving her standing alone, clutching the front of her coat and working to keep the tears threatening to break free at bay. Papa hated it when she cried. He always said she did far too much of it.

When he returned she was still standing in the same spot, staring at the blank gray wall the bed was pushed up against.

“What are you doing?” he asked, irritation curling the edges of his tone. “Take your coat off. I’ll help you unpack.”

“Papa…,” she mumbled in English, looking down as the tears she had been fighting finally caught up with her. “Papa, how long will we stay here?”

He frowned at her. Her father disliked that her mother had taught her English at all but had been rarely able to deny his wife anything. Usually Emma spoke to him in Russian. “The organization I work for has been kind enough to allow me to bring you here. You will attend classes and defense training when you’re old enough and you will become an asset to HYDRA when you come of age. This is your new home, myshka. Be grateful to HYDRA. They saved you.”

She had never heard her father mention HYDRA before today. He was always very secretive of his work, ushering her away whenever she had thought to go looking for him at home. She looked up at him, confused. He sighed in frustration.

“Always crying, myshka,” he muttered, lifting his hand to brush away the fresh tears. Papa rarely showed affection. This was the closest he’d come in years. “You’ll make your Papa proud, won’t you Emma?” His tone was soft, softer than she’d ever heard it. It brought her some measure of warmth in the cold room and she nodded.

“Yes, Papa.”

“You speak Russian here, myshka,” he corrected, his clipped tone returning.

“Da, Papa.”

Her father made her soup for lunch that afternoon and then escorted her around the base. He showed her the areas of the base she was allowed to enter and gave her a personalized key card to access them. As they walked the large corridors of the building, her father held her hand and Emma started to feel better. Perhaps this would not be so horrible, she thought. Papa had been more talkative than she could ever previously remember and he seemed minutely less annoyed by her than usual. Perhaps they would finally be close. Perhaps she would make him proud.

As they returned to their living quarters, a short stout man in a dirty lab coat stopped them mid-corridor.

“Colonel Karpov,” the man said, and her father turned to face him. The man was very grubby looking. He work thin-framed glasses that were smudged and twisted his hands nervously in front of himself when he spoke.

“Doctor,” her father responded, his face blank. The hand that was holding hers tightened ever so lightly.

“The asset has been wakened from cryostasis,” the doctor said quickly, glancing down at her and then back up at her father. She had no idea what he was talking about but whatever was making him so nervous worried her. “He’s behaving erratically.”

“Then wipe him, Doctor,” her father replied coldly. “This is not the first time.”

The doctor adjusted his glasses. “Yes, sir, but --,” he began and her father turned his whole body to face him, releasing her hand. The doctor shrunk back ever so slightly but finished his sentence. “He’s asking for Captain Rogers again.”


	2. Soldat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Buchanan Barnes is kidnapped by HYDRA forces in 1945 after his assumed death. He is molded into The Winter Soldier through extreme brainwashing methods and enhancements, a human weapon HYDRA proceeds to use to shape the following century.
> 
> During the early 90s, a Russian military officer named Vasily Karpov is placed in charge of the Winter Soldier Program, in an effort to give HYDRA more human weapons. When Karpov’s wife dies in December of 1991, Karpov brings his 7-year old daughter Emma to the Siberian base where Barnes is kept.
> 
> Emma spends 11 years at the base, being slowly trained and prepped as a HYDRA operative. During her time there, she has intermittent interactions with The Winter Soldier that test the boundaries of her loyalty to HYDRA and to her father. When Barnes is reactivated to assassinate SHIELD director Nicholas Fury in 2014, Emma is assigned to keep the “asset” focused on his mission. But her life (and his) get complicated when Captain America gets involved and with pressure straining their ties to HYDRA, Bucky and Emma find comfort in each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once I hit a rhythm with this, it sort of got away from me. This one gets pretty intense, what with there being a 7-year old child present while Hydra tortures Bucky into submission but there is a tiny bit of fluff to alleviate the heavy stuff.

Colonel Karpov walked briskly down the empty hallway, not bothering to make sure his young daughter was following him. Emma scrambled to keep up, several paces behind her father and the grubby doctor that had come looking for him. Her father had not spoken after the doctor had mentioned ‘Captain Rogers’ but had instead immediately taken off down the corridor. He was moving so quickly she was unsure whether he had intended for her to follow or not but as she had no way of entering their quarters without his key and since she preferred not be left alone waiting for him, she could see no other option.

They were fast approaching a pair of large, heavy double doors, guarded by two armed men. Emma bit her lip nervously, eyeing the guns the men held against their chests. She stood back a distance from her father and the doctor, who had stopped just outside the doors. She saw her father nod almost imperceptibly to the men, who turned wordlessly at the same time and inserted what looked like very large keys into the two circular locks on either side of the doors. There was a loud clunk and the guards moved back to their positions as the doors swung open slowly. At first glance, Emma thought the door had opened to another blank wall, but her father moved forward and stopped in front of a small keypad to the right. He quickly punched in the code – one, seven, eight, two and six – and a panel in the wall began to rise, revealing a small red journal with a large black star on the center cover. Emma couldn’t understand why they would go to such lengths to hide a diary but she said nothing. Her father pulled the journal from its place and tucked it under his arm, nodding once more at the guards. As he turned to walk back past her, the doctor spoke again for the first time since approaching them in the residence hall.

“Colonel, are you sure it’s wise to allow the girl -,” he began nervously, glancing at her for the first time. “The asset is not currently contained.”

Her father turned his gaze upon the man and then to her.

“She is no threat to him, Doctor,” her father said, a slight sneer on his face. “Unless you are suggesting a seven-year old child will somehow cause him to rebel against his activation?”

The doctor looked almost sheepish at that. Her father did not wait for him to reply but continued walking past him, nodding at her to follow him. She did so as quickly as she could, fear rising in her throat. She had no idea where he was leading her but the doctor had seemed concerned with her presence and her father’s demeanor had changed so drastically within the past few minutes she could only imagine it was somewhere unpleasant.  
This area of the base felt different. The number of armed guards had increased exponentially, the looks on their faces grim and intimidating. She followed her father through another pair of doors that led to a large circular room, armed men standing at different positions around the room, guns aimed at the center of the lower platform, where a complex looking machine stood, surrounded by doctors and computer terminals. Her father walked briskly around the raised area that enclosed the machine and down the ramp leading to the center of the room. Emma couldn’t see very well from her position near the door, and since no one was paying her any attention, she moved slowly behind the armed soldiers, trying to catch a glimpse of what her father was doing.

Just before she reached the opening of the railing where the ramp connected, her father shifted slightly and cleared her path of sight, revealing a shirtless man sitting in the machine. The various clamps were closed tightly around his arms, one of which was a shiny silver metal, a red star gleaming at the top of his shoulder. Emma stared at the metal limb in fascination. She had never seen a person with a metal arm, or any other body part for that matter, and her curiosity overwhelmed her fear as she moved almost unconsciously toward where her father stood.

She must have crossed an invisible barrier because suddenly people blocking her path and ushering her back up the ramp surrounded her. Their sudden proximity frightened her more than the strange man with the metal arm, although she assumed he must be dangerous to have so many guns pointed in his direction. She turned to go back up the ramp but her father’s voice called her back.

“Come here, myshka,” he said, his tone commanding and final. Several of the doctors offered weak protests but were silenced when her father turned his cold, unrelenting gaze upon them. It was something of a relief to know that even grown men feared her father as she did. She walked slowly down the ramp to her father, the metal-armed man closer with each step. Once she reached Papa, she trained her eyes back up to him, waiting to be told what to do.

“Are you frightened?” her father asked. She glanced briefly at the man in the chair. His long, dark hair was a matted mess around his face and his bare chest was heaving almost unnaturally. Both fists – metal and flesh – were clenched as if he were in pain but she could see nothing that was visibly hurting him. She raised her eyes to meet his, their color a steely blue that she found frightening and entrancing. His eyes were wide, a look of unmistakable fear etched into his features, as if he were calling out silently for help. She moved closer slowly and the man jerked suddenly against his restraints, his eyes never leaving hers. She skittered back to her father’s side, who chuckled darkly.

“Let’s see if we can make him more compliant, hmm?” he said softly, pulling out the red journal he had retrieved earlier. “Stand over by the computers, myshka.”

Emma obeyed without complaint, her heart still pounding from her scare. She positioned herself beside a tall, gray-haired doctor who looked down at her with obvious pity. “Cover your ears, little one,” he said quietly in English. Emma did as she was told, just as the large machine began to whir and two metal pieces lowered over the man’s head, covering the left side of his face completely.

For years to come, Emma would think back to this moment, the first moment she watched the man who was known as the Winter Soldier become empty, lifeless, even while still alive. She would have endless nightmares about this moment, hearing the screech of his screams long after she’d awaken. This was the moment that would undo all of Vasily Karpov’s hard work to transform his daughter into the HYDRA weapon he intended, though neither he nor Emma knew this at the time.

The man shook and screamed in pain, writhing against his restraints, brief pauses filled with his heavy breaths as he attempted to steady himself for the coming onslaught of more pain. All the while her father circled the machine, calling out words that she could just barely make out above the din of the man’s voice and her own self-imposed deafness.

“Longing.”

“Rusted.”

“Seventeen.”

The words made no sense, followed no logical order, but with each one, the man seemed to have the breath pulled from him, his fight against whatever the machine was doing slowly slipping through his fingers. Emma pressed her hands hard against her head but she could not drown out the sound, nor could she peel her eyes away from his face, contorted in agony. After what seemed like an eternity, the machine released him, her father stopped speaking and the man’s screams subsided.  
There was a deafening silence that followed. Emma kept her ears covered for a few moments after the noise had stopped, wishing she could drown the sound of his screaming from her memory. Her father stopped directly in front of the man, whose arms were no longer trapped in their restraints. She wondered, briefly, why the man did not attack or move until she heard her father speak.

“Good morning, Soldat.”

“Ya gotov otvechat,” the man replied. Ready to comply.

One of the doctors handed her father a tan colored file. Emma could not see what it said on the front before her father handed it to the man.

“I have a mission for you,” her father said, his emotionless tone mirroring the soldier’s. “Sanction and extract. No witnesses.”

Emma watched the metal-armed man raise his eyes to meet her father’s. He reached out with his flesh hand to take the file before his eyes flickered to where she stood. She flinched visibly under his gaze and her father turned to look at her. He raised his hand and beckoned her forward.

“Come closer, myshka. He will not hurt you.”

Emma wanted more than anything to run from the room but she knew she could not disobey him. She moved forward slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the soldier. His blue eyes followed her but he did not move, except for his chest, which was still heaving slightly. She reached her father’s side at last and her gaze drifted to the metal arm again. It was much closer now and she could see the individual plates in it that shifted on their own and hear the soft whirring noise it made. She was fascinated by it but still too scared to get closer.

“Soldat,” her father said suddenly. The man’s eyes snapped back up to her father. “This is my daughter. You will not harm her. You will do as she says.”

Emma’s eyes widened. She did not want to speak to the man, much less tell him what to do. She looked up at her father, silently begging him not to force her to do this. He frowned in response.

“Your fear is pointless, myshka. He is under control. There is no reason for it. He is a weapon I helped create for HYDRA. A weapon you will help mold. It is crucial you learn to speak to him without fear. He is like an animal and he can sense your weakness. You must leave it behind now.”

The man fixed his empty stare on her, waiting. She bit her lip and steeled herself, mentally pushing away as much of her fear as she could.

“W-what is your name, Soldat?” she said, her voice wavering but her Russian clear and precise.

The man continued to stare at her, the expression in his eyes confused, as if no one had ever asked him such a question. It dawned on her that perhaps no one ever had, that he had always been addressed as ‘Soldat’. She cocked her head to the side and after another moment that passed in silence, she moved slightly closer to him.

He did not move or flinch when she raised her small hand and pressed it to his metallic shoulder. She lightly traced the red star emblazoned there before moving her fingers down the ridges of the metal plates, feeling the low thrum of energy just beneath. The man was watching her, his gaze following her hand, his brow furrowed.

“Am I hurting you?” she murmured, sliding her hand down to his and letting it rest in his open palm. She was less afraid here, in the belly of the beast. Her father had moved back, observing them. This felt like a test, but the man before her did not seem so much dangerous as he did lonely. She understood lonely.

“No,” the soldier said, his voice gravelly and quiet. He lifted his metal palm with her hand in it and turned it over, examining her skin with as much fascination as she had the plates of his arm.

“Do you have a name?” she asked, pulling her hand back and lifting her eyes bravely to meet his directly. He shook his head.

“I will have to give you one then,” she said, smiling gently. She lifted her hand and pressed it to the red star on his shoulder once more. “Moya zvezda,” she said softly.

The man looked perplexed at the young girl’s sudden softness, the melting away of her fear. Those that did not speak to him with fear in their voices were giving him commands, but the child offered neither. He covered her hand on his shoulder with his flesh one, feeling her warmth. He did not know why he was still sitting here, except that Karpov had instructed him to obey the girl. He glanced down at the file in his lap. December 16, 1991 it said, written on the label on the front.  
Before he could speak, Karpov was standing before him again. “Come along, myshka. That’s enough for today. The soldat has his orders.”

The colonel pulled the girl away and the soldier’s hands dropped back to his sides. They were halfway up the ramp when the young girl turned away from her father’s grasp to look back at him. She ran back towards him, the eyes of half a dozen armed guards and her father watching her. She stopped in front of the soldier once more, stood on her tiptoes and lightly pressed a kiss to his cheek. The girl did not notice but the soldier felt the shift in pressure in the room as the guards raised their weapons slightly higher, tensed for his reaction. His eyes grazed the room before coming back to land on her. She smiled warmly, the first real smile she had given since arriving.

“Be good, moya zvezda.” She ran back to her father, who turned and led her back out of the room.


	3. What We Must Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Buchanan Barnes is kidnapped by HYDRA forces in 1945 after his assumed death. He is molded into The Winter Soldier through extreme brainwashing methods and enhancements, a human weapon HYDRA proceeds to use to shape the following century.
> 
> During the early 90s, a Russian military officer named Vasily Karpov is placed in charge of the Winter Soldier Program, in an effort to give HYDRA more human weapons. When Karpov’s wife dies in December of 1991, Karpov brings his 7-year old daughter Emma to the Siberian base where Barnes is kept.
> 
> Emma spends 11 years at the base, being slowly trained and prepped as a HYDRA operative. During her time there, she has intermittent interactions with The Winter Soldier that test the boundaries of her loyalty to HYDRA and to her father. When Barnes is reactivated to assassinate SHIELD director Nicholas Fury in 2014, Emma is assigned to keep the “asset” focused on his mission. But her life (and his) get complicated when Captain America gets involved and with pressure straining their ties to HYDRA, Bucky and Emma find comfort in each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize profusely for the angst. Hopefully, the next chapter will take a turn for the positive but no promises. That’s what I get for choosing this timeline. 
> 
> Reminder that any dialogue you see at this point is usually in Russian unless otherwise specified. I don’t speak Russian and I didn’t see the point in spending more time translating everything. 
> 
> *moya solntse means ‘my sun’

April 1997 – Siberia, Russia

Emma groaned, the blaring sound of her alarm jolting her awake. She did not need to look at the clock on her bedside table to know it was four in the morning and soon her father would be calling for her to get up and get ready for her training session. She stared at the ceiling of her room, not seeing it, trying to recall the details of the dream she’d been having only moments before.

She sat up finally, sweeping her long dark braid over her shoulder and stretching her sleep-laden limbs. She showered quickly and dressed in her standard issue training uniform before leaving her bedroom. Her father was sitting at the kitchen table, stacks of files scattered in a circle around his bowl of kasha. Emma served herself a bowl and then sat to eat, watching her father pore over stacks of what looked like mission reports. Her eyes scanned for a mention of him—it had been at least a year since she’d even heard about him, much less seen him—but there was nothing. If the Winter Soldier had been reactivated recently, they were going to extreme measures to keep the information secret.

She finished her breakfast and washed the bowl and spoon in the tiny sink in their kitchen. Her father gathered his files and went to stand by the door, apparently waiting for her. This was unusual. Emma had quickly learned her way around the base, mostly out of necessity (“No one is here to coddle you, mishka,” her father had warned her, several weeks after their arrival on base when she had gotten lost on the way back to the residence hall and spent an hour crying in a stairwell until her father found her) and was perfectly comfortable making her way to the training area on her own. Yet there he stood, silently waiting for her to put on her work boots. She made to grab her satchel but her father shook his head and cleared his throat.

“Not today,” he said, his tone clipped and dry as usual. She didn’t bother asking why. She had learned, in the last six years, that asking questions rarely got you what you wanted. She followed her father out of the apartment. He led her away from the training areas and down to the lower levels of the base. She had been down this way several times, but not in some time. The memory of those visits made her stomach clench and her throat dry. She suddenly knew exactly where he was leading her.

When they stopped to pick up the red journal, her fears were confirmed. Her father unlocked the vault and retrieved the small red book. He turned to her.

“Your teachers feel it is time for you to take on more responsibility here, mishka. They feel you lack purpose.”

Emma frowned. “I’ve received top marks in all my studies, Papa--,” she began but he raised a hand to stop her.

“Marks do not indicate motivation,” he said. “Or loyalty. It is time you prove your commitment to the cause.”

He extended his hand, offering her the red journal. She stared at it for a long moment, not moving. Her heart thudded against her chest. She knew what he was asking—no demanding—but she could not. She had been forced to stand by and watch them torture and manipulate the man they called “the asset” for years but she could not participate. She would not. She shook her head, raising her eyes to meet his.

“No.”

The cold expression on her father’s face turned quickly to anger. He took one long stride forward and grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her closer to him. She struggled, but it only served to tighten his grip.

“Insolent girl,” he said into her ear, and though his voice did not rise, the tone sent shivers down her spine. “You will not defy me. I have risked too much bringing you here. You will do as your told or I will put a bullet in your precious soldat’s head,” he spat. She turned her head to look at him, defiance blazing under skin but she knew there was no argument. She wrenched her arm free and snatched the journal from his other hand. She stood back and waited wordlessly.

Her father straightened his uniform front and stalked past her. She followed him down to the basement level but he led her down an unfamiliar corridor that led away from the soldier’s cryo-stasis chamber. The hallway was lined with what looked like prison cells, large heavy doors with only a small sliding opening towards the top. She had never been here before and was briefly struck by the thought that her father was planning to lock her in one of these cells. Before she could open her mouth to ask him where they were going, they reached the end of the hall and a final door.

She followed him in. The room resembled the training areas where she spent most of her time learning combat and weapons skills. Though the room was empty as she glanced around, she noticed another door on the opposite side. She set the journal on the small table by the first door and waited for instructions but her father walked out of the other door without a single word. She thought to follow him, but before she could, the door swung open again and two armed men came in, carrying the dark-haired soldier between them.

He looked weak, his hair damp and hiding his face from view. They deposited him on the floor in the middle of the room, and then promptly exited. The soldier laid where he had been left, head hung down, breathing heavily. Emma waited for someone else to enter the room but when no one did, she crossed the distance between them and knelt before the soldier.

“Moya zvezda?” she said softly, using the childhood name she had given him so long ago. “Can you stand?” She placed a tentative hand over his metal one.

He raised his head slowly and she gasped when his eyes met hers. She recalled all the times she had watched her father activate him, the way the color seemed to drain from his face, from his eyes. She had only ever known the emptiness of his gaze. Now, as he looked at her, they were far from empty. The fear she recognized but there was pain and more than that, rage. It blazed in the blue of his irises and suddenly there was recognition in them as well.

“Soldat?” she began, slowly backing away but she was not fast enough. The metal hand shot out and gripped her throat as he swiftly pulled himself to his feet. She clawed at his hand desperately, gasping hard for air. Her eyes swung wildly around the room and that was when she noticed it. A small window, too dark to be a mirror, on the far wall. Suddenly she understood. This was a test. A test she would need to pass if she did not want to die.

She glanced back at the soldier, whose grip tightened ever so slightly around her throat as he brought her closer to his chest.

“You’re the colonel’s daughter,” he growled in English. This surprised her. He was not Russian. The metal fingers wrapped around her throat loosened enough to allow her to speak.

“Yes,” she gasped out. “Please, moya zvezda, let me --,”

“Don’t call me that,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “I’m not your star. I am not your anything. You are going to get me out of here or I’m going to kill you.” He tightened his grip on her as though to illustrate his words.  
He believed her the enemy, responsible for the pain he had been forced to endure and he wanted her to suffer. How many times had she stood by as they tortured him, his eyes fixed on her as they drained his memories from his mind, replacing whoever he was with who they needed him to be? She could not blame him for his anger or his desperation. Still, she could not help him if she was dead and there would be no reasoning with him like this.

She channeled all of her remaining energy and oxygen and pulled her knees up to her chest before kicking out at hm. He was not the Winter Soldier yet and while he retained the muscle memory he needed to be a formidable opponent, there was too much emotion warring in his mind. Emotion was a distraction, her father had told her, and for the first time she felt relief that he was right. Her feet connected hard with the center of his chest and though she was not strong enough to topple him, her movements were fast enough to catch him off guard. His hand released her and she wasted no time in lunging herself at the red journal on the table nearby.

“NO!” the soldier bellowed, and before she knew what had happened, his arms were wrapped around her legs, sending her crashing to the ground. She scrambled to get back up; the journal just within reach above her but the soldier dragged her back towards him. She flipped herself over in time to land a swift kick to his face and pull herself back up. The soldier stood as well, his hair falling back in his eyes. She backed up this time, not taking her eyes off him.

“I’m not your enemy, Soldat,” she insisted. “We do not have to fight.”

She did not expect his response to be laughter but it frightened her more than his ire.

“But fighting is what they made me to do, mishka,” he spat, venom dripping from the nickname. He lunged for her but she moved just in time to send him crashing into the table behind her. She snatched the journal before his body connected with the table and flipped it open to the page she needed. She raised her eyes and found him watching her from the floor.

“Go on,” he taunted. “You’re no different than they are. Do it.”

She felt her heart splinter, tears stinging her eyes. “Moya zvezda, please,” she whispered. The fire in his eyes dimmed ever so slightly. She took a step towards him but he shook his head.

“Do it,” he said again, softer this time. “They’ll kill you if you don’t.”

“Why would you care if they did?” Her voice broke just enough to dismantle whatever anger he had left.

“I’m not finished with you yet, moya solntse,” he murmured. Her eyes widened at his words. She watched him slowly get to his feet. “Do it now.”

She searched his face silently then nodded. As she began to speak the words, he fell to his knees again, clutching his head in his hands, screams bursting from him and ricocheting off the bare walls. With each trigger, she felt her heart break for him but she steeled herself and continued. By the time she reached the last word, his eyes had glazed over and he was standing upright again. She closed the journal and straightened herself up. If she was going to do this –if they were going to do this—there would be no room for error, no room for weakness.

“Soldat,” she said, her voice clear and crisp.

“Ya gotov otvechat.”

 

On the other side of the two-way mirror, Colonel Karpov watched his daughter, a look of faint satisfaction on his face.

“Colonel?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Petrov,” Karpov said, still watching the asset and his daughter. “What can I do for you?”

“It seems the girl failed, sir. She resisted activating the asset,” he said quietly.

Karpov turned away from the mirror to face his colleague. “Is that what you saw, Lieutenant? Failure?”

Petrov walked to stand beside Karpov, studying the pair on the other side of the mirror. “She is weak, Colonel. That is all I saw.”

Karpov’s smile did not reach his cold eyes when he spoke. “Then you were not paying attention. You saw failure, you say?” Karpov collected his paperwork and strode the door. He swung it open to leave but not before turning back to Petrov. “I see leverage.”


	4. Heart and Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Buchanan Barnes is kidnapped by HYDRA forces in 1945 after his assumed death. He is molded into The Winter Soldier through extreme brainwashing methods and enhancements, a human weapon HYDRA proceeds to use to shape the following century. 
> 
> During the early 90s, a Russian military officer named Vasily Karpov is placed in charge of the Winter Soldier Program, in an effort to give HYDRA more human weapons. When Karpov’s wife dies in December of 1991, Karpov brings his 7-year old daughter Emma to the Siberian base where Barnes is kept.
> 
> Emma spends 12 years at the base, being slowly trained and prepped as a HYDRA operative. During her time there, she has intermittent interactions with The Winter Soldier that test the boundaries of her loyalty to HYDRA and to her father. With Emma assigned as an undercover HYDRA agent within SHIELD, lines are crossed and loyalties are tested when Barnes is reactivated to assassinate SHIELD director Nicholas Fury in 2014. Her life (and his) get complicated when Captain America gets involved and with pressure straining their ties to HYDRA, Bucky and Emma find comfort in each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was incredibly difficult for me to put together because I knew I wanted it to be the jumping off point for some big stuff so I hope I did it justice.

October 2003—Siberia, Russia

“Bystreye.” Faster.

Emma scowled at the ground before lifting herself off of it. The Winter Soldier stood before her, back straight, expression blank, waiting for her next move.

“Yeshche raz,” she said, through gritted teeth. Again. The soldier stalked forward and Emma held her ground. His left arm shot out, a blur of silver metal, but Emma was ready. She dropped, kicking one leg out under his feet. He tripped and steadied himself swiftly, but she was faster. She hit him hard in the center of his chest, elbow to sternum, and heard a distinct oof escape his lips as he bowed against the blow. She used his position to her advantage, leaping up and wrapping her thighs around his head to bring him crashing down completely. For a brief moment she felt exhilarated, the thrill of success coursing through her veins. But before it could settle, his metal hand was wrapped around her throat, tight enough to contain her, if not to strip her of breath completely. Anger and a natural sense of panic washed over her. She drew her legs up instinctively to kick at him but he knew her responses well and deflected the blow easily. She clawed at his hand and for a second, just a fraction of a moment, a small smirk quirked the corner of his lips, before he released his grip on her throat and stood back again.

The door of the training room slammed open and Colonel Karpov entered. Emma stood straight up again, her posture mimicking the soldiers.’ Karpov’s eyes swept past the soldier and landed disdainfully on his daughter.

“Leave us, soldat.” The soldier hesitated, but only for a moment, his eyes finding hers, before turning and exiting the room.

The air in the room was thick in his absence, the silence closing in as Emma waited for her father’s punishment. For six years, Emma had poured all of her energy into her training. She had proven all her teachers and trainers wrong, excelling at everything from combat to weaponry to covert ops. She was, in the words of one of her teachers, “the most capable operative HYDRA had produced in years.” When the time came for her to choose a field for advanced training, she had chosen cybernetics, much to the dismay of her combat trainer. Her father had insisted that she make herself useful to the Winter Soldier program and as he put it, “We already have a weapon.”

Karpov walked swiftly to stand before his daughter, his face devoid of emotion. He raised his hand and Emma barely had time to process what was happening before she was face-to-face with the barrel of her father’s pistol. Survival instinct kicked into overdrive and she spun to kick the gun out of his hand. She dove before the weapon hit the ground and landed back on her feet, the gun now pointed at his forehead. He smiled, an expression lacking in mirth and loaded in malice.

“Lieutenant Colonel Petrov may have been right about you, after all,” he spat, the smile still fixed on his face, though his tone marred the gesture. “You are weak.” She lowered the gun, feeling her rage rise in her throat. Her father was gifted at saying the words he knew would rile her up, daring her to act out, to give him a reason to punish her. Some days it was all she could do to stop herself.

“Weak?” she repeated quietly, her the low timbre of her voice doing little to hide the anger just beneath the surface. “How am I weak, Papa?”

Karpov’s twisted smile fell away. He stalked back to the door of the training room, wrenched it open, and barked, “Get in here.” The Winter Soldier reentered the room. His eyes swept over Emma as he moved, searching her face for some sign of what had happened, but she shook her head minutely, just enough for him to see. This was not the time. Karpov had come back to stand in front of Emma, the position he held now directly between her and the soldier. He held his hand out wordlessly and she placed the pistol back in his hand. In one swift movement he held the gun out the soldier, who took it without hesitation.

“Shoot her,” Karpov said, his voice even. The soldier gripped the gun tightly and aimed it at Emma. She could feel her heart hammering under her ribcage but she could not move. The soldier’s eyes locked with hers and in them, she could see the war he was fighting. His programming did not allow him to disobey a direct order, but twelve years of unspoken friendship and quiet solidarity burned through whatever damage HYDRA had done to his mind. His finger hesitated on the trigger for the whisper of a moment, but it was long enough. By the time the bullet had left the chamber, Emma had moved out of its trajectory. Karpov cursed. He snatched the gun from the soldier’s grasp and aimed it at his forehead.

“No!” Emma cried, before she could stop herself. She lunged for Karpov but he was waiting for her. His hand collided with her cheek hard and sent her sprawling back.

“Worthless girl,” Karpov hissed, still holding the gun to the soldier’s head. “See how he waits for his death. Obedient as a dog.” Karpov turned the gun to face her. The soldier did not move, though his eyes watched her intently where she lay still clutching her cheek.

“Do you think he would come to your aid if the tables were turned? You mean nothing to him. Do not mistake your fantasy for love. He is not your friend. He is not here to protect you. He is here to do as I command,” Karpov lowered the gun. “As are you.”

Emma found her feet once more, but kept her eyes pointed to the ground, tears filling them faster than she could control. She had not allowed herself tears in front of her father for many years and she hated herself for not being strong enough to stop them now. Her father was right. She was weak. “I’m having you reassigned,” Karpov said, his voice even again. “You will be of more use to HYDRA outside this base and your precious soldat will be put back in his cage until he is needed again.” Her father sneered at her suddenly. “And you will put him there.”

Karpov set the pistol on the table. “Soldat,” he addressed the soldier, his eyes still fixed on Emma. “My daughter is to escort you back to your cryo chamber. If she attempts anything else, you are to shoot her, point-blank. Is that clear?” The soldier picked the gun up and aimed it back at Emma. “My mission is understood,” he said robotically.

Emma lifted her eyes to meet her father’s before he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the two of them in silence. Emma exhaled hard out of her nose. The stinging in her cheek had worsened and the soreness of her sparring match with the soldier was starting to set into her bones. He waited for her, still holding the gun, but not moving. She walked forward, past his motionless form, and opened the door of the training room.

“Come along, moya zvezda,” she said. He followed her down the corridors that led to the cryostasis chambers. There were more of them now than when she had first arrived, product of her father’s experimentation with the serum given to the Winter Soldier. There were five more super soldiers kept at the base, but the serum had reacted differently with the new ones. They were angrier, more hostile, and less prone to follow commands.

As they neared the chamber, she suddenly felt his hand on her shoulder. She turned to face him and found that he had lowered the gun and was standing very close. She had to lift her head to look at his face, as he seemed to tower over her.

“Moya zvezda?”

It was an unspoken rule between them that she never refer to him as Soldat. It was a slave moniker, the label they had slapped on him when they had attempted to erase the part of him that made him human. He reached his right hand out slowly, a sign that he meant no harm, and brushed the back of it against her stinging cheek. The warmth of his skin soothed her momentarily before is hand dropped back to his side.

“I am sorry,” he whispered in English. He always spoke to her in English, his native tongue. Most of the practice she had gotten with the language since her mother’s death had been with him.

“Sorry? You did nothing.”

He nodded solemnly. “You’re right. I did nothing. I stood there and allowed him to hurt you. I should have stopped him.”

She shook her head and this time it was her turn to bring her hand up to his cheek. She held it there and he let his face rest in her palm for a moment, eyes closed. This contact was the only kind he received that was not intended to harm or control him. These moments were fleeting, but he lived for them.

“We have talked about this, moya zvezda. We are bound to our duties if we wish to survive this. We—you—must obey.” He grimaced and pulled away from her. It broke her heart to have to say the words he hated so much. Nevertheless, they were true, at least for now. And he knew it too.

“They will send you away now,” he murmured, not looking at her. “Because of me.”

“This was always the plan,” she replied, turning away from him and moving down the corridor. She heard him begin to follow again. “This is the only way to ensure our freedom.”

“You’re sure? What if they don’t do as you think they will? What if--,” his voice rose as he spoke and she raised her hand again to cover his mouth and stem the flow of words.

“Shhh,” she hushed him. “My plan will work, moya zvezda. You must trust me.” He gripped her wrist and lightly pulled her hand from his lips, but not before brushing them gently against the back of her hand in a soft kiss.

“I trust no one, moya solntse. But I will wait for you.”

He moved ahead of her and gripped the door of the cryostasis chamber. Her heart ached as she watched him pull it open. The process of pulling him out of cryo-sleep was always harrowing to witness but it made saying goodbye no less difficult. She reached out and gripped the front of his suit, pulling him back towards her. For so long she had loved him, first as a friend, and now— Now she was a woman and her body ached for him. Every stolen glance, every time his hands found her while they sparred, every unspoken word they shared sent shocks of lightening down her spine. And each time they put him back under, sometimes for months, sometimes for years—she felt his absence in her bones. She had never spoken the words aloud, though she had known them to be true for a long time. But as they stood there, on the precipice of a great change, she knew it would be a while before she would have the chance again. She brought his mouth down to hers and he went willingly. His lips were softer than she had imagined, and a soft moan escaped her lips as she drank him in. She felt him release the chamber door and his hands were on her; in her hair, on her face, at her waist. He tugged her against him hard, eliminating any space that might have kept them apart. She felt herself grow breathless as his tongue parted her lips and explored her mouth. She would have gladly faced any punishment for the kiss to last a moment longer but he pulled away quickly, turned and disappeared behind the chamber door. She stood in the shadow of the corridor for several long minutes, tears overrunning her face, her inner strength briefly lost in her grief. Then she straightened, turned and left the corridor—and her soldier—behind her.

December 2003—Washington D.C.

“I need a goddamn assistant,” Nicholas Fury barked to no one in particular. There were stacks of reports and evaluations littered across his sleek glass desk. He hated the desk, but it had been a gift from Secretary Pierce and considering Pierce made it a habit to drop by Fury’s office unexpectedly, he had no choice but to keep it and use it. He suspected Pierce had known that Fury would hate the desk and had bought it with that notion in mind. Fury stood up from the desk abruptly, and strode across his office to the wide mounted screens that covered the opposite wall. He stared at the information inching across the screen, mission updates; intel gathered and uploaded pictures of eliminated targets without really seeing any of it. He needed a vacation, he thought half-heartedly.

He shook his head at his own thought. As if he could take a vacation. He glanced back at the screens and sighed. As if he would. A beeping noise brought him out of his reverie. He walked back to the desk, briefly considered shooting it for perhaps the ninth time that morning, and pressed a button on his cordless office phone.

“Someone here to see you, sir,” a voice said and he groaned and rubbed at his uncovered eye. He had almost forgotten. He pressed the button again.

“Send her in.” The glass doors of his office swung open and a young woman stepped through them. She was young but that was not uncommon. Her skin was pale in an almost unhealthy way, as if she had spent a good deal of time out of the sun. Her dark hair was twisted into a braid that fell over shoulder and her sharp grey eyes took in the room and its only occupant with the kind of focus and attention detail that Fury knew could only be taught.

“Miss Karpov, I presume?” Fury said, holding his hand out. The girl shook it briefly, her eyes still taking in her surroundings.

“This is a safe space, Miss Karpov. You’ve got nothing to fear here.” Her eyes finally zeroed in on Fury, studying him carefully before replying.

“If you’d seen the things I’ve seen, Director, you’d know there is always something to fear.”

Fury smiled in spite of himself. “I think you’re gonna fit right in around here.”


	5. Partner

March 2009 –Washington, D.C  
The briefing room was a sanctuary when it was empty, Emma thought, as she tossed her performance evaluation report on the long, sleek conference table and took a seat. In a building staffed with hundreds of people the cool, dark room was her favorite place. Occasionally, to escape the constant movement and bustle that was the Triskelion, she would hide in one of the empty briefing rooms for a few hours, just to be alone with her thoughts. Even after six years outside of the Siberian base, Emma found it difficult to acclimate to life in the “real world.”

Emma closed her eyes. Six years since she’d been reassigned to S.H.I.E.L.D, her mission simply to infiltrate and establish herself as a high-leveled agent within the ranks. It hadn’t been easy. Emma was good at what she did but she had trouble working with other agents. She had been assigned several partners who had complained that she was uncommunicative and uncooperative.

‘I realize your previous training favored a more ‘every man for himself’ philosophy, but at S.H.I.E.L.D we encourage our agents to work together.’ She scowled at the note on her performance evaluation from Agent Hill. Hill believed, as did most of the higher ranking agents, that Emma had been trained by a group of Russian mercenaries as an assassin for hire. She obviously wasn’t at liberty to disabuse her S.O about her training but it irked her that she was being forced to play nice, considering she was all too familiar with the cutthroat nature of ambitious agents. She didn’t trust anyone to have her back in a tight spot and this mentality had saved her life more times than it had endangered her.  
The lights in the briefing room jolted her from her thoughts. Her eyes shot open and focused on the person who had joined her.

“Chto ty zdes’ delayesh’?”

Emma frowned. Natasha Romanoff had been the bane of her existence since she’d arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D. Natasha was a primary HYDRA target, but she lived in Fury’s pocket and that proximity had afforded her a longer life than HYDRA preferred. Emma had no doubt that Romanoff’s loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D had something to do with this very fact. Romanoff had been trained in the Red Room, the Soviet training facility created to indoctrinate the deadliest female spy in the world. Their primary philosophy was survival at all costs, a lesson Romanoff had clearly learned well. Romanoff’s extensive background also meant that she was the only risk to exposing Emma’s true identity and this set Emma on constant edge.  
Romanoff was watching her carefully now, waiting for an answer. Emma sat up straight in her chair.

“Waiting for Agent Hill,” she said coolly, responding in English. Romanoff eyed her suspiciously for a moment before visibly squaring her shoulders and tossing her head back disdainfully.

“Your debriefing has been rescheduled. Something else took precedence.”

Emma bit back the retort that simmered behind her lips before responding in the same cool tone, “Something else?”

Romanoff opened her mouth to respond but the door to the briefing office opened and Agent Hill, Agent Coulson, and Director Fury stepped through it. Emma stood quickly, gathering her report to her chest and moving to exit the room as surreptitiously as possible but Fury stopped her before she could reach the door.

“Stay. You should be here for this, too. You might have some insight we can use.”

Romanoff looked at Fury quickly and then back at Emma. “Sir, are you sure--,”

“Agent Karpov worked closely with Russian mercenaries that may have heard of the Winter Soldier,” Fury interrupted her and Emma’s heart stopped.

It had been six years since she’d even heard that name, since she’d allowed herself to think of him. Working deep within S.H.I.E.L.D meant doing everything she could to eliminate distractions that could give her away and thinking of the soldier only made her current assignment harder.

But here he was, haunting her in spite of her best efforts. She swallowed hard and sank back into her chair, still clutching her file as if it could save her.

Coulson and Hill sat opposite her and Fury stood, as he always did during debriefings he attended, at the back of the room, arms crossed against his chest.

“I was recently tasked with escorting an Iranian nuclear engineer out of Iran. Drop off point was Odessa, but the mission was compromised when we were ambushed by an unknown agent.” Romanoff clicked off the lights in the room using a small remote and a projector screen rolled down at the front of the room. She clicked the remote again and a fuzzy picture appeared on the screen, denoting a masked figure, holding what looked to Emma like a VSS sniper rifle. Her heart sank further. The gun was a giveaway alone, and if she knew HYDRA, they would have outfitted the Winter Soldier with a gun that would be difficult—though not impossible—to trace. She did her best to focus on Romanoff’s report, carefully arranging her features in a blank expression.

“We know very little about the agent because the bullets he used contained no rifling. They were Soviet made however. We—,” Natasha began but Hill cleared her throat and with a small sigh, Natasha amended, “—I believe the unknown agent is the assassin known to some as the Winter Soldier, a highly trained Russian asset credited with at least a dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.

“What makes you think that Romanoff?” Phil Coulson said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that followed Romanoff’s statement. Emma realized suddenly that the three superiors in the room were unconvinced that the Winter Soldier even existed, to say nothing of being responsible for the assassination of a seemingly unimportant nuclear engineer.  
Romanoff frowned in Coulson’s direction before lifting the hem of her black tank top on the left side. The skin there was covered in gauze and bandage, and Emma made the connection quickly. The Soldier hadn’t just shot his target from a distance. He had shot through Natasha to get to his target, a tactic she’d read in his mission reports various times. The Soldier’s programming required him to complete his mission at all costs, regardless of what –or who—got in his way. Natasha spoke again, her voice full of conviction.

“It was a solid slug, Coulson. No rifling. Whoever he was, he made damn sure we couldn’t trace it back to him. And the slug was Soviet made. No one else could’ve pulled off a shot like that.”

“We have highly trained agents here who have performed similar operations, Natasha--,”  
“—not with this weapon, from this distance!” she snapped, her voice rising uncharacteristically. “It was over 200 meters away, at least. And the only kind of gun that fits the bullet is a Soviet made VSS rifle. None of our agents have access to that kind of weaponry. This wasn’t your run-of-the mill intercepted mission or we wouldn’t be here discussing it.”

“Karpov.”

Emma swiveled in her seat to look at Fury, who’d been silent until now.

“The mercenaries you were trained with, had they ever heard about this guy?” Fury’s good eye pierced her and she decided half-truth would be easier to sell than an outright lie.

“Sure,” she replied, turning her chair back to face the projector screen. “The Winter Soldier is a myth, though. He’s like King Arthur—a name attributed to numerous assassins throughout the last fifty years to make the stories better. No one has ever seen him or had any real contact with him. He doesn’t work for any of the major bosses. For all anyone knows, ‘he’ could be a woman. For several years, some of the people I worked with thought Romanoff might’ve been the Winter Soldier.”  
Silence followed this statement. Natasha was looking at Emma again, a muscle twitching in her jaw, her hands balled into fists at her sides. Coulson and Hill exchanged knowing looks.

“Director Fury,” Natasha said, her teeth gritted in anger. Emma had never heard Romanoff use Fury’s title when addressing him and she knew she’d hit a nerve. “Permission to look into this myth further. I think there’s something here. Something important.”

Her eyes flashed towards Emma briefly before landing on Fury again.

Fury sighed in frustration. He uncrossed him arms and walked towards Romanoff. “Agent Romanoff, you’re too valuable to send on a wild goose chase for some ghost assassin. I’ll have someone else look into it.”

“But sir—,”

“Dammit, Romanoff, enough!” Fury barked and the red-head recoiled visibly. The look in her eyes was nothing short of murderous but she knew better than to argue her point any further.

“You failed a mission. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. But it’s time for you to move on. We have more pressing matters to attend to.”  
Romanoff spun on her heel wordlessly and swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Emma had to hand it to her; she had ‘storming off dramatically’ down to an art.  
Fury sighed again, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Make sure I get her mission report,” he said aloud to no one in particular but Hill and Coulson seem to take that as their cue and followed Romanoff out of the room. Emma stood to leave as well.

“Not you,” Fury said. She turned to look at him. He was watching her, the same expression on his face that Romanoff had used after Emma’s assessment of the Winter Soldier. It was suspicion and something else, something Emma couldn’t quite place.

“When you showed up in my office six years ago, I was fully aware that your loyalty would be hard earned. A person doesn’t see the things you’ve seen, doesn’t endure the things you’ve endured, without developing a few trust issues along the way. I would know,” he smiled ruefully before his face returned to its usual solemnity.

“But do not for a minute think I am in your debt for the information you provided in exchange for my protection,” he growled, placing both hands on the smooth mahogany table and leaning towards her menacingly. “If you lie to me or withhold information or betray this organization and the agents in my care I will sell you back to the worms you ran from. And just think how pleased they’ll be to have the rat that got away from them. Maybe they’ll feed you to this mythical Winter Soldier.”  
Emma’s heart was racing but she said nothing, never letting her eyes fall from Fury’s as they bore into her. He leaned back slowly after a few seconds of hostile silence and crossed his arms again.

“As I understand it, you were here initially for a performance report briefing with Agent Hill, correct?”  
Emma nodded tersely.

“You just had it,” Fury said, holding his hand out for the file in Emma’s arms. She relinquished it hesitantly. Fury opened the file, set it on the table and pulled a pen out of his inside coat pocket. He wrote something on the front page of the report, clicked the pen closed, and shut the file, tucking it under his arm. He walked across the room to the door.

“I’m recommending Romanoff as your next mission partner. Try not to get her killed.”

He left the room in a swish of his black leather coat and Emma felt the air rush out of her lungs, only then realizing she’d been holding her breath. She took a few minutes to collect herself before leaving the debriefing room. It suddenly felt less welcoming than it had been when she’d first walked in.

She was rounding the corner to the training areas, hoping to blow off some of the tension that had gathered in her shoulders after the debrief, when she was hit hard in the chest and knocked backwards off her feet. She sprung back up, immediately landing in a fighting stance, eyes searching for her attacker but she saw no one.

“You should be more careful, myshka,” a soft, venomous voice said behind her. She whipped around and found herself face to face with Romanoff. She straightened out of her fighting stance, narrowing her eyes.

“And you should keep your nose out of matters that don’t concern you, Natalia,” Emma hissed. She moved to stalk past Romanoff but the redhead stopped her with a firm hand on her forearm.

“You know nothing about me, Karpov. You don’t know what I’m capable of. If you’re not here to help, then stay out of my way.”

Emma smirked at her. She wrenched her arm free from Natasha’s grasp. “You’ll have to take that up with Director Fury,” she retorted. “Partner.”

She walked away, leaving Natasha in the darkened hallway alone.


	6. Compromised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was so much fun to write, guys. Shout out to my awesome fiance for literally helping me map out most of the technical details of this chapter. Thank God he has an unnatural interest in guns and combat methods.
> 
> *Skoro, moya zvezda = Soon, my star
> 
> **Skoro, moya soltnse = Soon, my sun
> 
> Spetsnaz = Russian Special Forces

June 2011 – Moscow, Russia

    “The guard on the right. Do you see him?”  
    Natasha Romanoff’s voice crackled in Emma’s ear and the young woman rolled her eyes. She was standing on a rooftop some forty feet away as Romanoff grappled onto the east wall of the Russian Federal Security Services offices they had been watching for the past two hours. Through her rifle’s scope, Emma counted a total of six guards, only two of them armed. It was an unusual number of guards, considering the thirty-story building housed a secret server room containing hundreds of files the Russian government was keen to keep away from the prying eyes of the world.  
   “It’d be hard to miss him, Romanoff,” she muttered under her breath, knowing Natasha had heard her. “It’s not like this place is overflowing with people.”  
   “He’s unarmed.”  
   “I’m aware.” She repositioned her rifle on its bipod, watching Natasha deftly cut through the glass of the twenty-fourth floor with a high-powered handheld laser device and slide inside the building. Emma followed her movements as she picked through the cubicle farm and into the hallway leading to the stairwell.  
   “Six guards? More of them unarmed. Don’t think that is a little weird?"  
   Emma knew it was weird. The Federal Security Services had purchased the building for the express purpose of maintaining a private server with no external links to the main FSB network. SHIELD had been monitoring the FSB for several months, after they had discovered a leak of weapons information that the Russian government had gotten their hands on. When the FSB acquired the building, it could only mean one thing. Fury had dispatched Romanoff and Karpov, ironically nicknamed “The Dream Team” by their fellow agents, to extract the information from the server’s hard drives—along with anything else that might be useful to SHIELD.  
   Of course, what Fury did not know was that HYDRA had a stake in a number of compromising files stored in the server. Several of the documents contained in those files could expose damaging information that would destabilize the Russian government if brought to light, and by extension, the HYDRA operatives nestled deep in its branches. Emma’s orders from HYDRA had been clear: stop the extraction at all costs.  
  “Stationing guards holding automatic weapons at a civilian workplace would draw too much attention, Natalia,” Emma snapped. “You’ve got incoming on your left,” she said in the same breath, and aimed her gun at the guard walking around the hallway corner towards Romanoff’s position. Natasha ducked under one of the office desks and held her breath, waiting for Emma’s “all clear”. Emma’s hand tightened on her weapon, preparing to take the guard down if he got too close, but the man paused several feet from Romanoff’s hiding place, yawned, then turned and left the area. Emma watched him trundle down the stairs to the floor below before giving Romanoff permission to proceed.

  Two years of working covert operations together had made Natasha and Emma the most effective covert extraction team that SHIELD had. Their deep dislike of each other aside, both women were highly trained experts and neither was willing to compromise a mission because of personal reasons. Their interactions off mission were short and to the point and on missions they worked off their frustrations at each other by being competitively efficient. It wasn’t perfect but it was a dynamic that got the job done consistently and no one back at SHIELD was complaining.  
Natasha had reached the server room and made her way to the main terminal. Emma watched her pull a small silver flash drive from a pocket on the belt of her suit and insert it into the machine.  
   “How long?” Emma asked, checking her watch. The sun was coming down fast and the current guard shift would be ending soon. The new set of guards would be making their start-of-shift rounds and it was imperative that Romanoff be gone when they did.  
   “Five minutes.”  
   “Can you do it any faster?”  
   Even from a distance, Emma could see the twitch in Romanoff’s jaw when she answered.  
   “Considering the computer is the one ‘doing it’, no.”  
   “Great. If you get caught in there with your pants down—,”  
   “—then you’ll have my death on your hands. What’s the point of you if you can’t take out a couple of unarmed guards with a sniper rifle from forty feet away?”  
   Emma opened her mouth to retort, but a sudden movement in her peripheral vision made her stop. She swung the rifle toward the guard shack in the back parking lot of the building. Three of the guards were waving and yelling to the armed guards near the open lot gate. The armed guards turned and ran into the building and Emma watched in panic as they quickly ascended the stairs to the second floor elevators.  
   “Romanoff, something’s wrong. The armed guards are heading into the elevators. I think they know we’re here. I thought you said the hacking software would be undetectable?”  
   “Can you stall them?” Romanoff asked. Emma saw her pull her handgun from its holster and check the door of the server room.  
   “Natasha—,” Emma snapped furiously. Romanoff was avoiding her question on purpose. Emma watched the remaining unarmed guards pile into a truck in the parking lot and drive away. She couldn’t blame them. Federal Security Services might have only provided six guards but HYDRA would not have left a server filled with compromising information without adequate protection. They would have safeguards in place. Safeguards that were sure to include more than just two armed men. Natasha needed to get out of the building now.  
   “Just do it!” Natasha barked.  
Emma cursed and repositioned her rifle. She sucked in her breath, lining up her shot expertly before shooting the elevator call buttons through the thin glass of the lobby windows. She couldn’t help but chuckle under her breath as the guards reached the elevators only to find they would be taking the stairs. She turned the scope back towards Natasha to tell her she had maybe five minutes more before the guards climbed the twenty-five stories to where she was but more movement in her peripheral vision distracted her.  
   “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she muttered.  
   “What? Did you stall them?”  
   “Well, not exactly.”  
   “Damn it, Karpov! What is it?”  
   “It” was coming down the street towards the building. Four armored trucks rolled into the building parking lot and stopped. The back doors on each truck burst open and at least six armed Special Forces soldiers leapt out. Their uniforms were standard Russian military but even from where she stood, she could tell their weapons were HYDRA-issued.  
  “Romanoff, you need to get out now,” Emma barked, settling back behind the rifle to take aim. “Something must have triggered a silent alarm. We’ve been compromised.”  
“Who is it?”  
“Spetsnaz,” Emma lied, knowing it would be enough to make Natasha move.  
“Shit. Okay, hang on. The hard drive is almost wiped.”  
“Fuck the hard drive, Romanoff!” Emma growled, swiftly putting a bullet in the heads of the first two armed guards on their way to the server room. “There are twenty-four of them. Even you can’t pull that miracle. Get to the roof and get out of there!”  
“It’s done! I’m going!”  
  Natasha pulled the flash drive out of the terminal and stuffed it into her suit belt. She ran for the server room door and out into the cubicle farm surrounding it. She could hear the thundering footsteps of the soldiers in the stairwell. She had almost made it to the hallway when four of them spilled into the room, guns aimed and ready.  
  Natasha leaped into the air as they opened fire, narrowly dodging the first round of bullets as they flew past her. Emma shot the two soldiers to Romanoff’s left in the space of one breath and Natasha took out the remaining two. She dashed forward but more soldiers blocked her path to the hallway and Emma could not pick them off fast enough as they flanked Romanoff and closed in on her.  
  “Romanoff, can you get to the window in the hallway?”  
  “Sure, if these nice fellas would be so kind as to let me by,” Natasha said, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. “Can you clear a path?”  
  “I can try,” Emma sighed dramatically for good measure, put her eye back to her scope, and put a single bullet through two of the soldiers closest to the door. Natasha spun, roundhouse kicking the soldier nearest to her, sending him tumbling into the man behind him and Emma took her shot again, dropping them both. She readied herself for her next shot but a loud boom shook the whole block and the tremor from the explosion that had just gone off in the lobby of the building sent her keeling backward.  
  “What the fuck was that?”  
  Safeguards, Emma thought. It was HYDRA protocol in regards to keeping sensitive information out of the wrong hands—when in doubt, blow it all to hell. This was HYDRA’s plan all along. They would prevent the extraction of the information and bury Black Widow in a pile of rubble without lifting a finger or exposing themselves. If Emma wasn’t so angry, she’d be impressed.  
  “The building is rigged to explode,” Emma said. “That’s the bad news.”  
  “You mean there’s good news?”  
  “Well…if the building is about to go down, the path to the hallway is about to get a lot more clear.”  
  Sure enough, the remaining Special Forces had ceased their onslaught and were retreating out of the building as quickly as they could. Natasha took her chance and raced out into the now deserted hallway and towards the stairwell at the end.  
Another resounding boom rattled the foundation of the building and Natasha was thrown sideways as the entire structure swayed. She scrambled back up and dove into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. Emma watched her move through the windows, calculating she had another four minutes to get to the roof and away from the area of destruction before it collapsed beneath her.  
  At least she would have, if the Winter Soldier had not shown up.  
  A low flying helicopter zipped over Emma’s head and hovered above the collapsing building as she watched, horrified. The Soldier leapt from the open door of the aircraft and rolled as he hit the roof of the building. Emma’s heart lodged in her throat but her hands moved quickly. She didn’t have much time to do what she needed to do and she couldn’t let emotion slow her down. She lowered herself to her rifle once more, lined up her shot and fired. The bullet struck the window on the twenty-seventh floor, in the hallway nearest Natasha’s position.  
  “Romanoff, the roof has been compromised. I need you to get into the hallway on the twenty-seventh floor and wait by the window. I’m coming in.”  
  “Compromised? By who? I thought the soldiers left.”  
  “Natasha, just do what I tell you for once, please!” Emma said, desperation clipping the edges of her voice. Natasha heard it and obeyed without further argument. She ran through the stairwell door into the hallway Emma had picked and raced to the window. Ash and smoke clouded the view outside and it looked like the glass had splintered and cracked slightly around a bullet hole in the center. Emma, Natasha thought, sparing a moment to marvel at her partner’s expert marksmanship.  
Meanwhile, Emma’s zip line anchor was ready and she secured one end of the high-tension cable to it. She aimed the grapple launcher she was suddenly grateful she’d lugged along in spite of Romanoff’s protests and fired, securing the other end of the cable to the wall of the building next to the FSB offices.  
  “Get back,” she ordered Natasha, attaching the hook and handle to the line. She took hold of the zip line handle and whizzed across the distance separating the buildings. She gathered her legs beneath her and propelled herself through the cracked window, crashing through the glass and landing crouched in the narrow hallway in front of Romanoff.  
  Natasha moved towards her suddenly, weapon drawn, eyes fixed on a point several feet behind Emma’s head. Emma pulled her own handgun from its holster, spinning around to face Natasha’s target and the felt the air leave her lungs.  
The Winter Soldier stood in the hallway with them, covered in ash, his silver arm glinting in the low light of the crumbling passage. A black facemask covered everything from his nose down but she knew his eyes as well as her own and her heart thrummed frantically in her chest. The Soldier raised his gun and those eyes locked on hers for the briefest of moments, just long enough for her to throw herself around Natasha and bring her down to the ground as he fired his weapon.  
The bullet hit the wall above them and a loud screeching noise echoed from inside the building. The structure was coming down now and if they did not move, it was taking them down with it. Emma rose and pointed her gun at the Soldier who raised his at the same time but before either of them could fire, the ceiling above them gave in and piled rubble and concrete at the Soldier’s feet, effectively blocking his line of sight and giving Natasha and Emma their chance. They jumped out of the gaping hole the window had left behind together, Natasha grabbing Emma’s hand as she leaped. The building seemed to dissolve in a cloud of smoke behind them as they tumbled towards the ground but Emma pulled a grappling hook from her belt and shot it at the building nearest to them, sending them swinging into another glass window.  
  Emma scrambled to her feet again, ignoring the burning in her bones and the searing pain of the cuts the glass had opened on her face and hands. She ran to the window they had flown into and scanned the remains of the FSB building, panic coursing through her veins. Had the Soldier escaped? She saw no sign of him and her heart dropped into her stomach. She turned back toward Natasha who was sitting up, biting her lip and pressing her fingers into the spot where a bullet had grazed her upper arm.  
  “Guess those stupid Spetsnaz had better aim than I thought,” she joked meekly. Emma scowled at her and pulled several swatches of gauze from her utility belt. Wordlessly, she handed them to Natasha, who pushed them against the wound. Emma sank to her knees beside her, pulling more first aid materials from her belt and tending to the wound as best she could. She was no doctor but she had had enough field experience with flesh wounds to know how to handle them.  
When the wound was clean and bandaged, Emma rose to stand, holding her hand out to pull Romanoff up. Natasha looked like she was about to say something but Emma turned away from her.  
  “Let’s get out of here,” she said and Natasha followed her as she limped away.

  Forty feet away, on the roof of a building overlooking the wreckage of the recently demolished Federal Security Services building, a shadowy figure with long, dark hair watched what no one else saw: two women, one with fiery red hair, limping away from the scene as fire trucks and police cars pulled along the side of the rubble. He crouched low, running one silver hand over the ridges of a forgotten sniper rifle. His hand stopped as his eye spotted a folded piece of paper tucked beneath the weapon. He pulled it out and flipped it open with one finger. It contained only one sentence, but he felt his mouth curve into a smile beneath his mask.  
  _Skoro, moya zvezda_.  
  “Skoro, moya solntse,” he murmured to the cold night air.


	7. Red in the Ledger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is literally just one conversation but it’s a much-needed conversation and also I really hated Nat and Emma not being friends, so I’m glad they’re getting there. Fear not, Cap will be making his debut in the next chapter!

Emma threw her duffel bag hard onto one of the two queen beds in the hotel room she and Romanoff were sharing for the night. Several handguns tumbled out along with her toiletries bag and underwear but she was beyond caring. They had nearly been compromised and the Soldier—Emma’s heart rate picked up as she recalled their encounter—the Soldier had been there and now there would be no denying his existence, no pretending he was a figment of Romanoff’s imagination. Fury would know she’d lied to him and she had no doubt he would make good on his threat to send her back to her HYDRA overlords.  
Emma’s thoughts returned to the Soldier. She had no idea if he was alive or dead, but if he’d somehow made it out of the office building before it collapsed then he was facing a different problem. He had failed his mission, which Emma could only assume had been to ensure Romanoff–and the compromising information she’d obtained—did not make it out of the building. In the twelve years she’d known him she had never heard of him failing a mission; his programming made that nearly impossible. But he had failed this one and he had done it on purpose, to ensure Emma’s survival. Emma couldn’t help but be angry with him. Sure, she was alive, but at what cost? HYDRA—her father—would know he’d rebelled against his orders and he would be punished. And he had risked undoing all of the work Emma had put in to free them both from HYDRA’s clutches. She balled her hands into fists, needing desperately to punch something to relieve the frustration welling in her chest. She paced the small hotel room, unconcerned with the state of her stealth suit which was covered in blood and dirt or the mud her boots were tracking across the plush white carpeting.   
Natasha had sunk down on the other queen bed and was staring, unseeing and silent, at the floor. She raised her head suddenly and stopped Emma’s pacing with one hand on her arm. Emma turned to glare at her but was caught off guard at the look on her face. Remorse. In nine years, it was the one emotion she’d never seen Romanoff express. Remorse, hesitation, doubt—these weaknesses were bred out of Red Room students early on. To see her expressing it so openly now brought all of Emma’s internal monologue to a halt.   
“Emma, I’m sorry,” Natasha mumbled miserably. “I put us both at risk today. That’s inexcusable, regardless of our personal relationship.”   
Emma frowned. “You put us at risk? What do you mean?”  
Natasha sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat.   
“It was the flash drive. It—I—it had software on it that I was using to search the server for something specific. Something not mission related. It must have tripped the silent alarm.”  
Emma stared at her, waiting for more. She could feel the tension building in her shoulders, panic and rage mixing in her blood and she worked in vain to keep her breathing even and her expression blank.  
“I’ve been hunting down any information linked to the Winter Soldier,” Natasha continued, avoiding Emma’s gaze as she spoke. “I know Fury told me to drop it but I couldn’t. I knew he was real. He was there in Odessa. Most of the intelligence community thinks he’s a ghost but I knew if I could find proof that he existed then—,”  
“—Then what, Natasha?” Emma exploded. She had known Romanoff would be her undoing but even she hadn’t seen this coming. “Then Coulson and Hill and Fury would believe you and you could wipe that failed mission from your conscience? Is that really why you put us at risk today? That was three years ago. We could’ve fucking died! I know killing people is an assassin’s bread and butter but there are more direct ways of getting rid of me.”  
Natasha recoiled as if Emma had physically slapped her in the face.   
“Do you honestly think that?” she half-whispered, looking up at Emma. “That I would endanger us both on purpose?”  
“I don’t know what I think, Natasha,” Emma said, collapsing on her bed. She was suddenly exhausted. Her face felt swollen and numb from the wounds she’d obtained from zip lining through the window of the office building. “I’ll tell you what I know. I know that you willfully disobeyed Fury’s orders and in doing so put both of our lives on the line. Because of pride. Because you couldn’t stand not being Fury’s golden child for one second.”  
“It had nothing to do with pride!” Natasha yelled, jumping to her feet. “This is more important than me or SHIELD. The Winter Soldier is responsible for the deaths of major political figures, businessmen and women, titans of industry and some of the greatest technological and scientific minds of this generation and the last—he’s not just an assassin, his work has shaped the last half of the century. Whoever he works for is using him to reform society and government and they need to be stopped.”  
Emma was silent as Natasha spoke and for several moments after she had finished. Natasha reclaimed her seat at the edge of her bed and sighed.   
“So who is he?”  
Emma’s eyes snapped up and she found Natasha looking directly at her, her expression expectant.   
“What?”  
Natasha smiled, pity suddenly in her eyes. “I knew you were hiding something when you came to SHIELD. I worked for the KGB for years—I know what a Russian woman carrying a secret looks like, as well as I know my own reflection. I had no way of knowing what it was and to be quite honest, I figured it wasn’t my business. I have secrets of my own. We all do. No one survives this life without them.”  
Emma swallowed hard, not trusting herself to speak. Natasha continued.   
“I knew I couldn’t trust you, but that’s nothing new. I can count on one hand the people I trust at SHIELD. But with you, there was always something more. I couldn’t put my finger on it until that debriefing two years ago. When Fury asked you if you’d heard of the Soldier, you went out of your way to discredit me.” Natasha’s eyes had lost their softness and her expression was calculating.   
“If you had known nothing at all or if you’d had information you were simply unwilling to share, you could have kept your mouth shut. You didn’t just want to remove yourself as a source of information. You needed to confirm the unspoken opinion that I was imagining things, chasing ghosts. Destabilizing me ensured not only that what you knew was safe, but that no one would go poking around to find out more.”   
Natasha smiled again, this time with more of her usual smugness. “It might have worked too. But I’m no one’s puppet, no matter what you might think of me.”  
Emma closed her eyes and waited for the accusation that was sure to follow.   
“He’s the secret you were keeping,” Natasha continued and her voice was closer now. Emma opened her eyes to find Romanoff sitting beside her, legs tucked beneath her, expression expectant and eager, as if they were not two full-grown female assassins discussing the unraveling of each other’s’ respective worlds. She looked more like a teenage girl waiting for her best friend to dish on the juicy details of her first date. Emma sighed and buried her face in her hands, hissing lightly at the stinging it produced. She wanted to cry or scream but she had spent too long learning to hide those emotions and they did not come easily now. All she could do was talk.  
“How old were when you were taken to the Red Room?” she asked quietly.  
“Seven,” Natasha replied quickly. “Why?”  
“I was the same age when my mother died and my father locked me away in a Siberian base to become a weapon. I was too young to understand what was happening, what my father wanted me to do. I thought if I worked hard and gave him what he wanted that maybe things would be good between us.”  
“It didn’t work,” Natasha murmured. Emma shook her head.   
“Of course not. My father had long since begun to see people as tools, as weapons. Instruments in the larger scheme of things. I was no exception. I think in some ways he thought he might be able to train my resemblance to my mother out of me and then he wouldn’t be forced to see her and how he’d failed her every time he looked at me.”  
Natasha was silent, giving Emma a moment to fight back the wave of emotions that were pushing at the walls she had built up so carefully. She took a deep breath and continued.   
“The base was cold, devoid of anything crucial to a healthy childhood. I was taught early on to fight, to defend myself, to cause pain to others. Fear and hesitation were not luxuries afforded to a child meant to be a gun. The only intricacies of life allowed were the lessons on how to end one.  
“The Soldier was a part of my life from my first day at the base. I watched my father unravel him, take out whoever he was with words and pain and replace him with directives, missions to destroy and destabilize. He was no more a person in the eyes of my father than I was. His sole purpose was to obey. Can you imagine what that does to a person?”   
“I happen to have a fairly good idea,” Natasha replied, smiling sadly and Emma nodded again, understanding that she was right, that the indoctrination process Natasha endured was no less harrowing.   
“Then you understand how it shocked me to find kindness in him. In a place where kindness did not dwell, I found it in the one man who had no reason to indulge it.” Emma’s eyes had finally betrayed her, tears blurring her vision slowly. She took another deep breath.   
"You're in love with him." Natasha was watching her, her eyes piercing and curious. It was not a question. She was not looking for confirmation, only comprehension. She wanted to understand.   
Emma paused before answering. The easy truth was a yes. But she knew the way Romanoff had been trained and the mentality that was necessary for female spies to maintain in order to be good at what they did. Love was not a luxury that was permitted or understood. She chose the harder truth.  
"Love is for children, Natalia,” Emma said simply and Natasha blinked at hearing words she’d used once tumble from the mouth of this woman, whom she had alienated as her enemy for so long. They were not as different as she had once assumed.   
“The Soldier was kind to me when no one else was and that kept me alive when nothing else did,” Emma continued. “You think of the Winter Soldier as a thing, just as his keepers did, because you see only what he has done. But I know who he is in spite of those things. The reality that someone could walk through that fire and still emerge with some humanity saved my life. I owe him a debt."  
Romanoff studied Emma's face. She felt, rather than heard, the truth in Emma's words. She knew exactly what that compulsion felt like, the need to level the playing the field when someone laid their life on a line for you. Both the Soldier and Emma had been given a clear path for what their lives were supposed to mean. Both made a different call.   
"You've got red in your ledger," she said simply and Emma inclined her head curiously at Natasha’s choice of words. “I’ve been there,” she clarified, a new smile lighting her features.   
“Barton,” Emma said, realization hitting her. Natasha nodded.  
The two women sat in silence but for the first time since they had met, the air that hung between them was not thick with tension or suspicion. An understanding had been met, a bridge extended and for the first time they saw themselves standing on the same side. Despite all that had transpired in the last few hours, Emma felt lighter. She was no longer holding in everything that could undo her and although sharing it with Romanoff put both of them in danger, the weight felt easier to carry with someone else holding it too.   
Natasha was the first to break the silence.   
“I still have questions, you know. There’s a lot of stuff—,”  
“—I know,” Emma said quickly. “But telling you everything is too dangerous, Nat.”   
Natasha grinned at the use of her nickname, knowing it meant Emma had finally begun to see her as a partner and not an enemy.   
“I’ve kept lots of secrets, Em. I can keep yours too.”  
“I can’t put you in that position.”  
“I’m very flexible,” Natasha quipped, winking suggestively at Emma, who laughed in spite of herself.  
“I may not hate you anymore, but I don’t like you that much, Romanoff.”  
“Whatever you’re facing, I’m willing to face it too. It might help to have someone else who can vouch for you if it comes down to that,” Natasha said, her expression serious again. “You know who the Winter Soldier works for, right?”  
Emma nodded silently, her throat dry.   
“And they still think you work for them too, I’m assuming. Considering they knew to send him to the FSB building while we were there.”  
Emma winced. She had informed HYDRA of the mission details several days before she and Natasha had left. She had never imagined they would pull the Soldier from cryostasis for something like that but someone—and she had a sneaking suspicion who—must not have thought that Emma would be able to prevent the extraction herself. Her stomach knotted itself as her mind whirled back to the punishment now facing the Soldier for failing the mission as well.   
“Emma?” Natasha was looking at her with concern. Her panic must have shown, because Natasha reached one hand out to grip Emma’s shoulder in solidarity.   
“It’s okay. I get it, I really do. Regardless of what you told them, you saved my life back there. They don’t own you, no matter how much they think they do.”  
“If they find out what I’m doing, that I’m betraying them—,” Emma murmured, twisting her hands in her lap. “They’ll come for me. For you. For anyone they think is a threat. I cannot put you in that kind of danger.”  
Natasha sighed quietly. “What is it going to take for you to trust me?”  
It was Emma’s turn to smile, though there was no mirth in her tone when she said, “Would you trust you?”  
Natasha laughed. “Probably not. But I’m not going to sell you out, Emma. I owe you a debt, remember? I’ve got red in my ledger. I’d like to wipe it out.”  
Emma considered this. She knew she was too far in now to be able to keep a safe distance when all of this—HYDRA, her plan—came crashing down. She couldn’t risk telling Natasha everything, not yet. But maybe—  
“I’ve got a better idea. You want more information on the Soldier, right? But there are things even I don’t know. So here’s my offer. I’ll help you find out who he really is and when the time comes, you help me fight for him.”  
Natasha cocked her head, eyes narrowed as she considered the offer. “You don’t know who he is?”  
“The information is top secret,” Emma explained. “Not even my father knows.”  
There was a brief silence and Emma swore she could hear her heart thudding and then—  
“I’m in. Where do we start?”


	8. Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter skips around a bit, to set up what’s coming. I’ve made the dates and locations bold so you don’t miss them.

**July 2011** –

July 2011 – Red Hook, Brooklyn

Steve Rogers could remember a time when he honestly believed that his old Brooklyn neighborhood would never change. In hindsight—and boy, did Steve have plenty of that—he had never considered the possibility of seeing the neighborhood nearly seventy years after he’d lived in it. His old apartment building had been replaced with a block of kitschy boutiques and coffee shops but the majority of the neighborhood looked run-down and neglected. Huge red brick apartment buildings lined the streets and a massive blue and yellow building with the word IKEA slapped across its face greeted commuters from the expressway. Steve wandered the docks near the old brick warehouses, the smell of fish and cigarette smoke filling his lungs. This, at least, was familiar, he thought. It was hard to believe it had been seventy years before that he had chased a HYDRA agent down the adjacent street and into the bay. It was harder to accept that he was here again, traipsing past alleys where he’d been beat up, where Bucky had come to his rescue or where, more often than not, he’d curled up for hours until he’d found the air and strength to limp home.

Truthfully, this place no longer felt like home, and it had not felt that way since his mother’s passing in 1936. When Fury had released him from SHIELD custody, Steve had gone to the only place he could think of—Brooklyn. Whatever he was searching for however, was no longer here.

Manhattan was a sensory overload. Even in the forties the tiny island always seemed too small for the larger-than-life characters that resided there and in that respect nothing had changed. Now however, it was not just the people that overwhelmed visitors. Buildings towered too high, billboards shouted and flashed at him on every corner and the sound of taxis and disgruntled New Yorkers filled his ears.

No place felt right. He had resigned himself, seventy years ago, to the reality of dying for his country and was now forced to contend with a world he never expected or asked to be a part of. A part of him wrestled with the guilt of being ungrateful for being alive. The nurses at SHIELD called it a miracle but with everyone he’d ever loved or known dead and gone, Steve felt as though some cruel joke had been played on him. It didn’t help that the country he’d given his life for willingly no longer resembled the one he’d fought for. Upon waking, they had been quick to inform him that the war was long over and that the Allies had won. But the more time he spent out in the world, the more he wondered about all the things that had been lost.

 

Steve stepped into the large glass elevator that led exclusively to Fury’s office in the Manhattan SHIELD headquarters. SHIELD had put him up in a hotel while he looked for an apartment but Fury had asked him to come in to discuss a different option.

He stood in the brightly lit office, staring out of the windows that covered the entire east wall of the building. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans, wishing he had his shield and suit instead of the leather jacket and t-shirt he was currently wearing.

“Cap.”

Steve turned to find Fury striding towards him, a manila colored file folder under his arm.

“Thanks for coming. How’s the welcome back tour going?”

Steve winced then twisted his face into a tired smile.

“I’ll let you know when it’s over.”

“Find an apartment yet?” Fury moved to stand beside Steve, setting the folder on his desk and clasping his hands behind his back. Steve shook his head.

“Nothing in Red Hook, huh?”

“Red Hook was hardly home when I left. It definitely isn’t anymore.”

“Manhattan too loud for you?”

Steve laughed. “Manhattan is too everything for me.”

Fury chuckled with him. “Well, I had some people look around for you. Found a pretty nice place in Brooklyn Heights, not too far from your old stomping grounds. Decent gym nearby. Owner’s a good guy. Kind of guy who knows how to keep quiet.”

Steve nodded silently. He knew Fury hadn’t called him here just to help him with apartment hunting.

“Got a proposition for you,” Fury finally said, turning to pick up the manila folder from his desk and handing it to Steve. Steve flipped back the cover, and his eyes scanned the information before him. It was his file, with a provisional addendum listing him as “Captain America, SHIELD agent, Level 8.”

“The world still needs Captain America. It might help you to get back out there and D.C might be more your speed. Finding your place in the world again doesn’t have to be complicated, Cap. It can be as simple as doing what you’ve always done. Helping people.”

Steve said nothing, still looking at the file. The details on the page jumped out at him. Status: Active, formerly deceased. Age: 92—biological 26. Living relatives: None. Steve shut the file.

“With all due respect, sir. I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to get back out there.”

 

 **May 2012** –

_**Solenski Plaza, Russia** _

“This is not how I wanted the evening to go,” Georgi Luchkov murmured to the woman tied to the wooden chair in front of him. She had bright red hair, cropped short at her jawline. The short black dress she was wearing was stained with blood, mostly her own. One of Luchkov’s men leered at her, then raised his hand and brought it down hard across her face. Her head snapped back with the blow, then lolled forward before she lifted it slowly and smirked.

“I know how you wanted the evening to go,” Natasha Romanoff said softly. “Believe me, this is better.”

“I’m almost in,” Emma said into her earpiece. “Keep them talking.”

It had taken almost a year but Natasha and Emma had finally stumbled on a lead to the Winter Soldier’s identity. Most of their previous leads had landed them in dead-ends, often facing more trouble than the lead itself was worth. Most of their detours had stemmed from Emma working hard to keep Natasha from the whole truth—that the Winter Soldier was a HYDRA asset and that Emma herself was one of many HYDRA agents hiding deep undercover within SHIELD.

Even more distracting had been the discovery of Captain America, frozen in ice for seventy years, but still very much alive. For weeks, SHIELD agents had stopped in halls, briefing rooms, even the cafeteria, whispering far-fetched rumors about the newly-thawed superhero. Emma had been fairly sure Agent Coulson almost popped a coronary when Fury placed him in charge of ensuring that Captain Roger’s rehabilitation went as smoothly as possible. Coulson had taken to telling anyone who would listen about his “vintage, near-mint” Captain America card collection, boyish glee shining in his face as he wondered aloud if ‘Cap’ would be willing to sign them.

Emma had met the Captain briefly during his tour of the Triskelion while she and Natasha had been between missions. She had smiled and shook his hand, feeling a distinct fear of the famed super soldier that was single-handedly responsible for HYDRA’s disappearance. He was tall and very handsome but she had seen a sadness in him that she could not remember seeing in the old World War II posters she’d been shown as a child, denoting him as “HYDRA’s worst enemy”. She had no doubt that Rogers would be less than pleased if he ever found out that HYDRA had never truly died, that his sacrifice and all he’d lost, had been for nothing.

Emma checked the progress on her hack. She was sitting in an unmarked van several miles from the plaza, watching Natasha’s interaction with Luchov on her laptop, streaming from cameras Natasha had set up several hours before her staged capture. On a second laptop sitting in the passenger seat, she waited for the Trojan virus program she’d written for the express purpose of hacking into Luchov’s personal computer to complete its processes. She had installed the program earlier that afternoon, when she’d snuck into the World Trade offices that acted as a front for Luchov’s black market export business. The plan had been simple: Distract Luchov long enough to get him out of his offices to allow the virus program time to work and crack a hole in his security services, just long enough for Emma to find the records and receipts for his illegal weapons trading. Weapons sold to HYDRA. Weapons used exclusively by HYDRA’s favorite asset.

Emma was fully aware that HYDRA would not be stupid enough to allow their fingerprints to remain on a black market trade that could easily be traced. Natasha, however, was not aware of this. Emma disliked lying to Natasha so blatantly but there had been too many close calls on this mission already and Emma simply could not risk Romanoff getting close enough to break open all of Emma’s secrets. With any luck, the information obtained from Luchov’s computer would be enough to keep Natasha busy for a few months.

“Who are you working for?” Luchov was saying, a smug smirk on his wide face. Natasha was silent, her eyes following Luchov’s pacing. Her silence seemed to irritate Luchov who nodded at one of his men. The thug walked over to Natasha’s chair, leaning it back over the large empty hole in the middle of the room that led to the ground floor of the building. “Lermentov, yes?” Luchov said, continuing his pacing. “Does he really think that we’ll have to go through him to move our tanks?”

Natasha’s brow furrowed and Emma cursed silently. Of course Luchov would be stupid enough to give away information he wasn’t meant to. He was a braggart and a fool, which was most of the reason that HYDRA had ceased doing business with him. Secret underground terrorist organizations tended to stay away from blabbermouth businessmen.

“I thought General Solohob was in charge of the cargo?” Natasha eyes whipped back and forth between Luchov and the man holding her chair back. The three men laughed sinisterly.

“Solohob?” Luchov chuckled. “A bagman, a front.”

Emma winced and grit her teeth. Idiot, she thought. General Solohob had been a front, a diversion created by HYDRA when Emma had warned them that Romanoff was closing in on the information she was looking for. Of course, this was information meant to be kept secret. Luchov’s big mouth was quickly becoming problematic. Emma ducked into the back of her van and grabbed her sniper rifle and bipod. She checked the time on the virus program. Five minutes. Plenty of time.

Emma inched the van along the road, turning off near a large blockade of bushes. She got out swiftly, running along the abandoned train tracks that lined the block near Solenski Plaza. She could see the building where Natasha was and her eyes quickly scanned the buildings numerous windows until she found her target.

“Natasha, we have five minutes. I’m in position.” Emma whispered, knowing Romanoff could hear her.

Natasha, however, was unable to respond. One of Luchov’s men was holding her jaw firmly while Luchov spoke, his back to his captive.

“Tell Lermentov we don’t need him to move the tanks,” Luchov said, and Emma saw through her rifle’s scope as he picked up a pair of rusty pliers and turned back to Natasha. She rolled her eyes. This man was the worst cliché of a villain she’d ever seen. “Tell him he is out,” he said, walking forward. Emma aimed her rifle at his head, her view clear from where she stood.

“Well,” Luchov chuckled again and Emma’s fingered the trigger on her gun, “you may have to write it down.”

She might have taken her shot then, if the sound of a ringing cell phone hadn’t interrupted Luchov, who turned to look at his henchman, who had answered the call. The man listened for a moment, then held the phone to Luchov. “It’s for her,” he said. Luchov snatched the phone away, held it to his ear and said, “You listen carefully—,”

Emma could not hear what the person on the phone was telling him but within a matter of seconds one of Luchov’s men was holding the phone to Natasha’s ear.

“Are you kidding me?” Emma heard Natasha say. “I’m working.”

The person on the other end responded and Natasha replied, “I’m in the middle of an interrogation. This moron is giving me everything.”

Luchov looked alarmed, stuttering, “I—don’t give everything.”

Natasha shot him a look of incredulity before stating into the phone, “Look, you can’t pull me out of this right now.”

Whatever the caller said next seemed to change Natasha’s mind however, because all she said was, “Let me put you on hold,” before nodding to the thug holding the phone and thrusting her legs out to kick at one of her captors.

Emma turned, collecting her bipod and rifle and jogged back to the van, listening to the sounds of Natasha swiftly taking the three men out. After another minute she heard her address the person on the phone again.

“Where is Barton now?”

Barton. Of course. Natasha’s sudden change of heart about her current mission made more sense if Barton had been compromised. Emma hopped back into the van and pulled it away from its hiding place, rolling it down the street to stop in front of the building Natasha was currently exiting. She was still holding the phone when she climbed into the van. Emma checked the laptop in the passenger seat. One minute until the virus took effect. She entered in her password and stopped the program.

“So?” She turned to look at Natasha, who was cleaning her face with a damp washcloth.

“I need a ride to the airport.”

 **January 2014** –

_**Siberia, Russia** _

Colonel Vasily Karpov drummed his fingers impatiently on the cold steel of his desk. Secretary Pierce was due to arrive any minute but Karpov was unused to being made to wait, even for someone as important as Pierce. The meeting had been scheduled for weeks and Karpov had no doubt that the Secretary’s abrupt decision to visit the base—something he had never felt the need to do before—could only mean bad news.

The door of Karpov’s office flew open and two armed men, private security by the cut of their overpriced suits, stepped in. Behind them, Alexander Pierce walked slowly and deliberately into the room, his eyes taking in the bare, gray walls before finally landing on the Colonel. Karpov stood and saluted. Pierce smiled—a dangerous, silky smile—and nodded to the man on his left. The bodyguard shut the office door and Pierce walked around the metal desk to sit in Karpov’s chair. Karpov ground his teeth together, recognizing the subtle display of power. He took the seat opposite Pierce and waited.

“How’ve you been, Colonel?” Pierce said quietly, his smile still lingering on his lips. Alexander Pierce had once been a handsome man but the strain of too many years faking smiles and loyalties had seeped through his skin and he had aged less than gracefully. His voice, however, had retained its youthful clip and when he spoke you could almost forget the menace behind his words. It was what made him so good at his job; he was a wolf but his smile was bright enough that you couldn’t see his teeth.

“Busy,” Karpov replied, knowing better than to fall for the trick. Pierce’s smile faltered, and the ice in his blue eyes glinted.

"So you have been,” Pierce murmured, holding his hand out for the file his bodyguard was extending to him. He flipped it open, thumbing through the pages with a look of mild interest on his face that disguised something else.

“You were working on expanding the Winter Soldier Program, is that right?”

Karpov nodded silently.

“And you were placed in charge of Barnes? Of ensuring that he carried out his assigned missions?”

Karpov nodded again, grinding his teeth together. Pierce was building to something and Karpov knew better than to interrupt him.

“And, as I understand it, your daughter is stationed at SHIELD? As a spy?”

Karpov nodded stiffly once more, lifting his eyes to meet Pierce’s. The smile was gone completely, replaced with a fierce glare. Pierce stood, tossing the file on the desk.

“So, from where I stand, it would appear that you have failed at every endeavor placed in your hands,” he said, the amicable lilt of his voice gone now. He leaned against the front of the desk, arms crossed over his chest. The stance was casual but the atmosphere in the room was anything but.

“Five of our best agents volunteered for the Winter Soldier Program and none of them are active because of the experiment. Our only functioning asset failed a mission that should have been a piece of cake for him, once again letting the Black Widow slip through our fingers. And your daughter,” Pierce stood once more and nodded at his guards. The men pulled Karpov’s arms behind him, effectively restraining him. Pierce drew Karpov’s pistol from his desk, examined it carefully then pointed it at him, “your daughter is a traitor to HYDRA.”

Karpov’s eyes widened. “A traitor?” He repeated the word clumsily.

“She was tasked with providing HYDRA with any and all information regarding Romanoff’s movements and she chose to keep a good portion of that information from us, resulting in two failed attempts to eliminate the Black Widow, as well as our asset’s failed mission in Moscow. I also have it on good authority that she contacted Director Fury before she arrived in Washington and in doing so, jeopardized HYDRA’s position within SHIELD, which means I now am forced to expedite Project INSIGHT. She is a liability and she needs to be dealt with.”

Karpov shook his head, unable to process Pierce’s words. Emma would not betray HYDRA, would not betray him. She knew better. She knew the consequences. She’d always had a touch of weakness within her but he had worked hard to train that out of her. His biggest conflict had been her undue attachment to the asset but he had nipped that in the bud quickly. It was the reason he had requested she be transferred to SHIELD, the reason he had sent her as far from the base as—

Karpov’s heart stopped for a beat. He had sent her there. He had given her the escape she had so desperately wanted and she had sold them out to the enemy, sold him out. The Colonel lifted his head and found Pierce watching him, a smug self-satisfaction written in the grin on his face.

“I will deal with my daughter,” Karpov choked out, his English heavy and lopsided.

Pierce laughed, a mirthless, empty sound. “You? No, Colonel. You have proven your incompetence on more than one occasion. I’m removing you from this detail. You’re done giving orders here.”

Pierce set the pistol down on the desk and waved his left hand in the air. The men holding Karpov released him and the man slumped forward, clutching the back of the seat in front of him to steady himself. Pierce and his men moved to leave the office but Karpov wasn’t done with Pierce.

“Mister Secretary,” he called out, his voice hoarse. Pierce and his men stopped and turned to look at Karpov. “I have dedicated my life to HYDRA. I have given everything I had to give to ensure HYDRA’s success. Surely that counts for something?”

Pierce’s signature wolf smile was back in place. He stepped toward the Colonel, and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder, compelling him to stand straight and meet Pierce’s gaze. “It counts, Colonel. I assure you. It is the only reason I’m not putting a bullet in your head for handing SHIELD an informant and making me get my hands dirty.” Pierce sighed and released Karpov’s shoulder.

“Unfortunately, actions demand consequences. And your actions—and your daughter’s—have cost me too much to be overlooked.”

Pierce turned again and walked to the door of the office. He paused in the doorframe, both hands in the pockets of his custom-tailored suit.

“You’ll be receiving your new orders shortly, Karpov. In the meantime, I have one last task for you on this detail.”

Karpov sank back into his desk chair. “Yes, sir?”

“Prepare the asset for movement,” Pierce said casually. His back was to Karpov as he spoke again. “I think it’s high time Sergeant Barnes returns to America.”

The office door slammed shut behind him and Karpov released the breath he’d been holding since the Secretary had entered the room.

 **February 2014** –

_**Brooklyn Heights, New York** _

“ _I need to put her in the water!_ ”

“ _He has an army, called the Chitauri. They’re not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract_.”

“ _An army. From outer space_.”

“ _Do you want to kill Nazis?_ ”

“ _Is this a test?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t like bullies; I don’t care where they’re from.”_

_“I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance.”_

_“Please don’t do this. W-we have time. We can work it out.”_

_“Peggy, this is my choice—_ ”

Steve Rogers bolted upright in his bed, sweat beaded on his forehead, his breathing ragged and shallow. He pushed away the comforter wrapped around his legs and sat at the edge of the too-soft mattress, sucking in his breath through his nose and releasing it through his mouth until his breathing steadied on its own and he was able to stand.

He’d had these dreams consistently for weeks. They were always the same, always a whirling flashback of the war, of New York, of Peggy and Bucky. Everything he’d lost. Every battle he’d won. He’d taken to avoiding sleep for the most part, spending ceaseless hours at the gym, pounding out his frustrations on endless punching bags.

He wandered his new apartment now, flipping on the lights in every room methodically. His eyes swept each room as he entered, searching for danger involuntarily. He poured himself a glass of water, then set it on the countertop, staring blankly through the kitchen window at the still night.

He had believed that receding into civilian life was the best choice for him. But the Battle of New York had highlighted a truth that had become harder and harder to ignore; that Steve wasn’t suffering from trauma left behind by the war—he missed it. The fury of battle, the comradery of fighting alongside his fellow soldiers, and the compunction to lead and to serve. He had always yearned for it, even before the serum, before Captain America. Now, with the memory of New York fresh in his mind, his dreams had become the siren call he could not drown out. He needed to be back out there.

Steve grabbed his cell phone from his nightstand table and dialed, not thinking to look at the time. The phone rang twice then connected.

“They forget to put a clock in your apartment, Rogers?” Fury’s voice barked across the line.

“You still want me in Washington?”

“If it’ll stop you from calling me at ungodly hours of the night, you’re damn right I do.”

Steve took a deep breath. “When do I start?”


	9. Ties Unraveled

April 2014 – Washington, D.C.

 

It was entirely too early in the morning for this.

Emma had received the email from Pierce’s secretary at five that morning and wondered vaguely, through a haze of sleep, why Pierce’s secretary worked such odd hours. When her brain function had kicked back in, she reread the email, brow furrowing with every line. 

Pierce was requesting a meeting with her that morning to discuss “her progress and future within SHIELD.” She’d frowned particularly hard at that line. Why would Pierce be concerning himself with one agent’s career that much? Why wasn’t Fury having this meeting with her? Why did the meeting have to be at seven in the fucking morning? Once she’d finished fuming to herself, Emma showered and dressed, pulling her hair into its usual long braid. She’d considered cutting it many times. God knew it would make sparring easier, not having a very pull-able target hanging off the back of her head but there was something comforting about keeping it the way it was. It was silly and sentimental, but she very rarely allowed herself those luxuries. 

Emma usually walked to work or jogged, if she felt like getting a run in beforehand. Considering the urgency of the email, she opted for catching a taxi instead this morning. She arrived at the Triskelion at six thirty and wondered if she had enough time to stop in to see Fury on her way to Pierce’s office. Several agents greeted her as she made her way to the elevators. Emma cursed inwardly when she saw Brock Rumlow approaching her and her eyes searched desperately for an exit strategy. Rumlow had been a constant nuisance to her, pointedly flirting with her during debriefings and repeatedly asking her out, despite her politely but firmly declining every time he did. It wasn’t so much that Rumlow was unattractive physically—it was more that Emma found his general demeanor and attitude towards everyone exhausting. 

“How’s it going, Karpov?” 

Emma pulled her face into a neutral expression. “I’m okay, Rumlow.”

“You’re here early,” he said, moving in closer to her as people rushed between them to get to work. Emma resisted the urge to take a step back.

“I have a meeting.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe we can hook up later? Get some sparring in?”

“Maybe,” Emma said, stepping around him. “Gotta get going.”

She walked away before he could stop her. She checked her watch. Six-forty. She decided to skip Fury’s office and make her way directly to Pierce. The sooner this was over with, the better. 

The elevator was empty when she got in. 

“Secretary Pierce,” she told the interface. “Confirmed,” it called back and the doors shut and the car began to rise. 

Pierce’s office looked like it was made of glass. The east wall was all window and the walls containing the area were glass as well. Emma was fully aware that the glass was one hundred percent bullet proof but she still found it ironic how open and visible the room was, considering how many secrets passed through it. 

Pierce was nowhere to be seen when she arrived so she took a seat on the long couch facing his desk. Her eyes flitted to the framed pictures of Pierce’s daughter and the awards that lined the wall beside the desk. There were more pictures too, of Pierce shaking hands with various world leaders and one of Pierce and Fury on what looked like some kind of hunting trip. 

“Ms. Karpov.”

Emma looked around. Alexander Pierce strode forward, a smile on his wrinkled face. He held his hand out to Emma amicably and she shook it. 

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

“I did,” Pierce said cheerfully, taking off his crisp suit jacket and laying it over the arm of the sofa. He rolled the sleeves of his expensive blue button down shirt to his elbows and leaned casually against the front of his (also glass) desk. “How are you?”

Emma blinked, confused with the question. “Sir?”

Pierce chuckled. “It’s not a trick question, Emma. May I call you Emma?”

Emma nodded hesitantly. “I’m doing fine, sir. No complaints.”

Pierce smiled wider at her and she got the distinct impression that she was staring down a wolf, all teeth and gums. “Everyone has complaints, Emma. It’s a workplace, after all. No one is completely happy all the time. Especially in this business.”

Emma frowned and shook her head. “I’ve got nothing to complain about, sir.”

Pierce’s smile faltered just the tiniest bit but Emma noticed. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she sensed danger. The muscles in her shoulders tensed. 

“You don’t smile much, do you Emma?” Pierce asked, standing upright and walking around his desk to the large full window behind it. “It’s an interesting characteristic of yours. You’re very stoic, always so serious. It impresses me.”

Now Emma was extremely confused but her instinctual sense of danger increased ten-fold at the tone of Pierce’s voice. 

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

“Well,” he said, and his voice was just barely above a whisper, so that Emma had to strain to hear what he was saying. “I have found, in my time as a HYDRA operative within SHIELD, that smiling and niceties are almost essential.”

Emma shot out of her seat, every muscle in her body tensed and waiting. Pierce was HYDRA. And the head of the World Security Council. Her head was spinning. How had she not been told? Why had HYDRA kept that a secret from her? Her eyes met Pierce’s and the smile on his face was no longer friendly, all the danger of the moment spelled out in the curve of his lips. 

“And yet, here you are. You don’t waste time with niceties or smiles and I can’t help but wonder how no one has rooted you out. How you’ve managed to fly under the radar when your personality leaves so much to be desired. You’ve made no friends, no allies. You’ve put down no roots. Surely you were trained in covert operations? In undercover work? Surely you know the risks of being found out?”

Pierce was inching closer to her with every word, his hands in his pockets. Emma stood her ground, watching him carefully. Pierce stopped in front of her, his smile never moving as he spoke. 

“Unless,” he murmured, reaching a hand out to tuck a stray piece of hair behind Emma’s ear. Emma resisted the urge to flinch at his touch. “Unless you have no need of hiding from these people because they already know who you are.”

Emma’s eyes betrayed her, widening at Pierce’s words. The hand near her ear came down quickly, tightening at her throat. Emma’s reached up to tug at his grip but he was not as weak as he looked. She gasped for air as he pressed his hand against her windpipe. 

“Did you think you’d be able to hide your betrayal forever? That HYDRA wouldn’t have someone at the top, watching you? I know you told Fury who you work for the second you got here, you little bitch. I know you’ve been secretly feeding him information, keeping us away from Romanoff,” Pierce hissed in her face. Emma clawed in vain at his hands but it seemed to amuse him. 

“Does Romanoff know? Does Rogers?” Pierce’s grip became a vice on her throat and the edges of her vision began to darken before he released her abruptly. She fell to the floor, gasping in air and rubbing the skin at the base of her neck. Pierce watched her from above, his face twisted in anger. 

“Of course they don’t,” he answered himself, walking away from her hunched form. “If Rogers knew you were HYDRA you’d be dead. It’s just Fury then.”

Emma climbed to her feet slowly, keeping her eyes on Pierce as he sat at his desk. 

“What are you going to do?” she asked weakly. Pierce smiled again and it made her stomach turn.

“I could kill you,” he said nonchalantly. “I should kill you. But I’ve already begun plans to correct what you’ve done. Eliminating Fury will just be the beginning.” Pierce held up a file that had been sitting on his desk labeled Project I.N.S.I.G.H.T. Emma’s heart pounded against her chest. 

“You’ll never get to Fury,” Emma said through gritted teeth. “Better men than you have tried and failed.” She knew she was pushing her luck but she didn’t care. Pierce outing her meant that she was in immeasurable danger but it also meant something else: she was finally free. 

“You let me worry about Fury,” Pierce said silkily. “You’ll have enough to worry about with Rogers and Romanoff on your ass when they find out.”

Emma stared at Pierce, her mind trying to connect what he was talking about. 

“Our time has come, Emma,” Pierce said. “Time for us to come out of the shadows and into the light. And how do you think the Black Widow and Captain America will take the news that you were working for HYDRA when they find out? Do you think they’ll show you mercy?”

Emma turned on heel and walked to the door of the office. She needed to get to Fury. She needed to warn him before—

“Good luck, Emma,” Pierce called. Emma stopped, her hand on the handle of the glass door. Her eyes met Pierce’s and he smiled one last time. “And hail Hydra.”

 

Emma took the elevator down to Fury’s office but found it empty. She questioned his assistant but she was under strict orders to not give out Fury’s location at any time. Emma cursed under her breath. She pulled out her cell and tried dialing the number to his secure line but the line rang and rang with no answer. She headed back into the elevator and rode it back to the main lobby. As the car dinged and the doors opened, Emma ran headlong into Brock Rumlow.

“Where’s the fire, Karpov?” Rumlow said, holding her up with his hands on her arms. Her eyes scanned the lobby behind him wildly before they came to rest on his face. 

“Nothing, I—,” Emma made to pull her arms out of Rumlow’s grasp but he held her tightly. “Rumlow, what are you doing?”

Rumlow grinned and Emma’s stomach twisted. He leaned in close, his mouth against her ear, hot breath fanning her skin. “Should’ve taken that date when I offered it,” he whispered and Emma stiffened. She tugged against his grip again but his hands tightened on her arms. “Hail Hydra.”

Emma brought her knee up swiftly and aimed it at Rumlow’s groin as hard as she could. 

“Sonuva—!” Rumlow cursed, pulling back and Emma ran past him and out the doors of the Triskelion, curious eyes following her out.

She gazed around the pavilion in front of the building, not sure what she was looking for. The ringing of her cell startled her and she pulled it out and answered it without looking at the caller ID. 

“Director?”

“It’s me,” Natasha’s voice said. Emma breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“Hey, where are you? Have you heard from Fury?”

“You need to come to the hospital, Emma. There’s been an accident.”

Emma felt her heart drop into her stomach. “An accident? What happened?”

“George Washington University Hospital,” Natasha replied, her voice monotone. “Come as soon as you can.”

The line went dead and Emma pulled the phone away from her ear. The pounding of her heart was too loud in her ears and it drowned out the sound of the cars passing by and the thoughts in her own head. She raised her arm and hailed a cab, climbing in when one pulled to the curb. She heard herself tell the driver the name of the hospital and stared blankly ahead as the car weaved through traffic. It came to a stop outside of the hospital and Emma spotted Natasha standing near the emergency room doors. Emma paid her cab driver and scrambled out of the taxi. 

Natasha strode towards Emma, who flung questions at her rapidly.

“What’s going on? Who was in the accident? Where’s Director F—”

Natasha cut her off by grabbing her arm and tugging her just inside the emergency room doors and into a small empty room to the left. 

“Natasha, would you please tell me what is going on,” Emma snapped as Natasha shut the door behind her. 

“Fury has been shot, Emma. He was at Roger’s apartment and they shot him through the wall.”

Emma wasn’t sure she could stand any more bad news today. She sank into one of the chairs in the tiny room. 

“Who shot him?”

Natasha was silent for a moment. Emma looked up at her, trying to read the expression on her face. It gave nothing away and Emma felt the panic in her chest worsen.

“Natasha?”

“We don’t know,” Natasha finally said. “The bullet had no rifling. But it was Soviet-made.”

Emma buried her face in her hands, finally letting the onslaught of emotions she’d been fighting since Pierce’s office leak through. A dry sob pushed its way out of her chest. There was no sound from Natasha as Emma sat there and cried and for the first time that day, Emma knew what was coming. 

“Did you know?”

Natasha spoke in a dead whisper but Emma had no trouble hearing her. She brought her eyes up to meet Natasha’s. 

“Did you know he was going to kill him?”

Emma nearly choked on her response. “Fury’s dead?”

“Did you know, Emma?” Natasha repeated, her voice no longer a whisper. Emma shook her head, both in answer to Natasha’s question and to try to dispel the reality of what was happening. Fury was dead and the look in Natasha’s eyes brought Pierce’s words back to Emma: If Rogers knew you were HYDRA you’d be dead. Judging by the venom in Natasha’s voice, Emma had no doubt the same would hold true if she found out. 

“I had no idea, Natasha,” Emma said. 

“Don’t lie to me, Emma.”

Emma stood up, her bones aching for something to do, someone to punch or shoot or kill—to make someone pay for what was happening. 

“Trust me, if I had known I would’ve said something.”

“I don’t trust you,” Natasha snapped. “But luckily for you, right now I don’t trust anyone. So I’m going to keep your little secret until I find out who’s behind this.” She stepped forward, coming nearly nose to nose with Emma. “And if I find out you knew or helped orchestrate this in any way, Emma, I swear I will bury you.” 

Natasha spun and flung open the door to the room. “Rogers and Hill are upstairs with him. Whatever you know or don’t know, I suggest you keep it off your face. Rogers will not be as understanding as I am.”

Emma followed Natasha out of the room and up the elevator to the floor where Fury was being kept. He’d already come out of surgery, Hill told them when they arrived to find her and Steve Rogers pacing the hallway outside of his room. There was nothing they could do, she said. It was too late and he’d lost too much blood. Emma felt her knees buckle and she placed a hand on the wall next to her to keep herself upright. Hill nodded at the door to his room.

“He’s in there, if you want to say goodbye. But make it fast. They’re taking him soon.”

Emma glanced at Natasha who stepped around her and walked in, Hill and Rogers behind her. Steve stopped, holding the door open for her but Emma shook her head. 

“I’ll wait here,” she mumbled and Rogers nodded, letting the door close behind him. 

Emma sank along the wall, hands buried in her hair as the sobbing she’d begun earlier resumed with full force. The events of the day whirled in her head. Her conversation with Pierce, Rumlow’s declaration of allegiance to HYDRA, Natasha’s threat and now this. Fury was dead. Her only real ally was gone and Pierce was on the precipice of revealing HYDRA’s presence within SHIELD and exposing her as the double agent she was. It wouldn’t matter to Romanoff or Rogers that Fury knew because Fury wasn’t around to vouch for her. They would never believe that Fury had taken in a known HYDRA operative and allowed her to exist beneath SHIELD banners. 

And the worst part, the very worst part was the Winter Soldier’s involvement. When Natasha had mentioned the rifling and origin of the bullet, it had been her way of telling Emma what they both knew—that the soldier had been assigned to assassinate Fury, that he was the only one who could pull something like that off at all. Emma had told Natasha the truth, that she had no prior knowledge of the Soldier’s involvement. She hadn’t even been aware that he’d been moved to the States. He’d been so close…

Emma got to her feet again, brushing her tears away. She had to do something. If the soldier was here and Pierce really was about to topple everything she had worked for, then now was the time to act. She had to find out what Pierce was planning and where he was keeping the soldier. And there was only one place she could find that information.

Emma walked to the nurse’s station down the hall. Her eyes scanned the open circular desk and found what she was looking for. A clear plastic bag labeled Fury, Nicholas J sat beside a computer terminal. Fury’s personal effects, packed and ready to be handed off to Maria Hill. Emma glanced at the two nurses on duty who were busy with a sobbing couple on the other side of the room, then reached across the desk and grabbed the bag. She tucked it under her jacket and walked briskly out of the hospital wing. She rode the elevator back down, arms crossed over her chest. Her heart rate had returned to normal despite the danger she was in. Her mind was focused now and it gave her clarity. She left the hospital and caught another cab back to the Triskelion. In the cab, she pulled the plastic bag from the inside of her jacket, emptying the contents onto the backseat of the car. Fury’s wallet and eye-patch fell out, along with a pair of car keys and the reason for her theft—Fury’s SHIELD badge. She pocketed the badge and stuffed the remaining items back in the plastic bag. When the cab arrived, Emma paid the driver and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The usual rush of people clamored around the Triskelion pavilion. Emma moved as quickly as she could without drawing attention and as she passed a trashcan near the wide steps that led to the building, she discarded the plastic bag containing Fury’s possessions into it. 

The south entrance was typically used as a service entrance, which meant easier access to the elevators with less questions regarding her actions. She rode the elevator to Pierce’s office, playing with the edges of Fury’s badge in her pocket. She assumed Pierce would’ve disabled most of Fury’s access to obvious areas but the probability of him anticipating someone using Fury’s badge to hack his personal computer was unlikely. It was a small window of hope, but it was all she had now. 

Pierce was not in his office, as Emma had expected. He would be dealing with the aftermath of Fury’s death, pretending not to know how this could’ve happened and feigning indignation and grief to the World Security Council. The thought of his silky smile made Emma furious, now that she knew the murderous, callous person that hid behind it. Emma stopped in front of the unoccupied assistant’s desk just outside the office and buzzed herself in. She would have five minutes at the most to find what she was looking for once she used Fury’s badge but it was enough. All she needed was information; to know where Pierce was keeping the Winter Soldier and what he planned to do with Project I.N.S.I.G.H.T. She sat in the leather chair behind the desk and got to work. She typed in Fury’s name and tapped his badge against the scanner located beneath the computer monitor. The scanner light flashed red while it registered the badge then a bright green. Emma let out the breath she’d been holding and began searching the hidden files on the computer’s hard drive. Pierce had been careful not to leave anything regarding HYDRA or Project I.N.S.I.G.H.T anywhere easy to locate but Emma was not inexperienced. She checked her watch quickly. Two minutes had passed since she’d scanned Fury’s badge. She had three minutes to find what she needed and get out of Pierce’s office. She was going to have to try something different. 

Emma pulled her keys from her pocket and uncapped a small silver flash drive she kept on it. The drive contained the virus Emma had built to hack Luchov’s files two years ago. She hesitated before inserting the drive in the USB port on the computer. The virus would shorten the amount of time she had to search but would weaken the computer’s defenses enough for her to search the files faster. She uploaded the virus and stood, pulling a small handgun from the holster under her jacket. She used Fury’s badge to lock Pierce’s office and positioned herself between the desk and the door to wait. She checked her watch again. Two minutes. The virus would take another minute to upload. If Emma was right, Rumlow and his STRIKE team would be answering the silent alarm that Fury’s badge would’ve set off in no more than three minutes. The bullet proof glass walls would hold for two minutes under heavy fire. Emma sighed. Well, she thought, what fun would it be if it were easy?

The virus upload dinged when it completed and Emma turned swiftly back to the desk and began to search the files on the computer. With no firewalls or defenses she found what she was looking for easily: a file labeled P.I-W.S. Emma copied it on to her flash drive, pulled the drive out of the computer and stuffed it back into her pocket. She would need to take the flash drive to a computer not on SHIELD’s network but at least she now had what she came for. Emma picked up Fury’s badge and her gun and ran to the office door. 

She was halfway down the hall to the elevator when she heard the sound of multiple voices coming at her. Emma’s eyes mapped the area quickly. Her only chance was Pierce’s assistant’s desk. She ducked down beneath it, pressing herself to the wood backing. She held her breath and waited. 

“Do you see her?” Rumlow’s voice barked.

“No sign of the target, sir.”

“She was here. She had Fury’s credentials. Check the office.”

Emma head the group of agents unlock Pierce’s office door. From the weight and sound of their footsteps Emma guessed there were three of them, including Rumlow. She listened to them pile into the office and realized this was her best chance. She slid out from under the large mahogany desk and ran down the hall to the elevator the STRIKE team had arrived in. She pounded the elevator button frantically, sending a silent thank you to whatever god was watching over her when it dinged and opened almost immediately. She clambered in and hit the first floor button. As the doors began to close, she heard one of the agents shout something to his companions but then the doors shut and the car began to move again. Emma’s back hit the wall of the elevator car as she struggled to steady her breath. Her brain whirred with questions, none of them easily answered. If Pierce had the entire STRIKE team in his pocket, how many other agents did he control? Could the number of HYDRA operatives really be greater than those still loyal to SHIELD? And where would Emma stand when the truth was ripped into the light? How many of her fellow agents would she have to kill?

When the elevator doors opened again, Emma dashed towards the exit, not sparing a glance around her. No one seemed to be paying her any mind, however. She had never seen this much commotion in the main lobby and she wheeled around, watching agents scurrying to the elevators, speaking into walkie-talkies, hands on their holstered weapons. Emma caught snatches of the orders being barked across the comms and she felt her heart crash into her knees.

“Orders are shoot to kill. Captain Rogers is a known enemy of SHIELD and a fugitive suspected of having important information regarding Director Fury’s murder. Lethal force authorized if necessary.”

Rogers. They were targeting Captain America. Whatever Pierce was planning had already begun.


End file.
